Team:SF Bay Area DIYBio/Team

David is a high school student at Gunn High School with a passion for molecular biology and medicine. He is a research intern under Dr. Leah Friedman at Stanford studying the efficacy of different insomnia treatments. This is his second year participating in IGEM and hopes to further develop his skills in research.

Adarsh Tantry

College Student

I am a rising sophomore at Santa Clara University studying Biomedical Engineering. I have a basic but rapidly growing background in cellular biology and chemistry. I am the leader of the Directed Evolution subgroup that will plan and execute the directed evolution assay that will form the latter half of the project.

Audrey Tzeng

High School Student

Hi! My name is Audrey and I'm a high school student who really enjoys biology! I've taken Biology courses at school and I am looking forward to contributing to the project.

Shreya Thiagarajan

High School Student

Shreya Thiagarajan

High School Student

A sophomore at Monta Vista High School. She loves biology and has done several science projects in this field. She has past experience in robotics, coding, and biotechnology. Shreya has been working at BioCurious since January 2015, doing her own science project and helping with the Real Vegan Cheese project.

Antonio Lamb

I'm a graduate of the molecular, cell, and developmental biology program at UCSC. I have a backgrond in computational biology, genetics, and molecular biology. I've also been a lab technician at SC Laboratories in the past, performing safety and potency chemical analysis on medicinal cannabis. I enjoy manipulating genes and I have had success transforming agrobacteria and preliminary success genetically engineering plants.

priyanka khanduri

Jonathan Reyles

Daniel Csillag

Manali Dwarakanath

Manali graduated with a PhD in Molecular, Cell and Developmental Biology from National University of Singapore in May 2015. She now lives in the Bay Area and is excited to be a part of BioCurious and iGEM2015!

Milo Toor

I am a recent college graduate with a BS in Computer Science. I developed an interest in genetics as an upperclassman in college, but opted not to pursue a degree-- instead, I now work at a bioinformatics startup in Oakland, which is focused on genome interpretation for clinical diagnostics. I hope to transition my career into genetic engineering, and plan to attend graduate school in the relatively near future.

Sean Van der Linden

Bruce Kim

Lafia Sebastian

MSc, Biotechnology

Lafia is a postgraduate in Biotechnology and a graduate in life science. She also completed the certificate course in Biotechnology from the university of California, Santa Cruz. She worked as a research assistant in a liposome drug delivery company. During her graduate studies she was involved in various projects such as assay of biofertilizers, antimicrobial activity of aloe-Vera, bacterial bioluminescence and development of cyanobacterial biofertilizer and shelf-life. She has been working at BioCurious since 2013.

Eric C Aker

Reena Nagpal

Victoria Innocent

Meenakshi Choudhary

PhD, Biosciences

Meenakshi's research interest focus on learning innovation. she has been involved in different research project like Algae and Cyanobacterial bioremediation, anti diabetic property of Cyanobacteria and Bacterial Bioluminiscence and working with BioCurious for over 2 years.

Johan Sosa

Johan has a background in computer security. He has been involved with BioCurious since 2012. He is into everything science.

Kye Stapleton-Gray

A senior at The College Preparatory School, interested in Biomedical Engineering.

John F. McGowan

Ph.D.

John F. McGowan, Ph.D solves problems using mathematics and mathematical software, including developing gesture recognition for touch devices, video compression and speech recognition technologies. He has extensive experience developing software in C, C++, MATLAB, Python, Visual Basic and many other programming languages. He has been a Visiting Scholar at HP Labs developing computer vision algorithms and software for mobile devices. He has worked as a contractor at NASA Ames Research Center involved in the research and development of image and video processing algorithms and technology. He has published articles on the origin and evolution of life, the exploration of Mars, and cheap access to space. He has a Ph.D. in physics from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign and a B.S. in physics from the California Institute of Technology (Caltech). He works for a well-known computer company.

Nikola Nikolov

Ph.D

2005-2011 PhD in Nuclear Physics at University of Tennessee

2011-2013 Postdoc in Astrophysics at Louisiana State University

2013 - current, New Product Engineer at KLA-Tencor Corp. Background: Physics, coding, algorithms.

Jay Hanson

Background in software. Biocurous member since 2012. Worked on bioluminescence project. Familiar with many synthetic biology techniques. Working on testing a biomarker for metastatic melanoma. Looking forward to working on iGEM project.

David Marash-Whitman

I am a recent graduate of Claremont McKenna College with majors in Biology and Government. I hope to build a career in synthetic biology designing biological solutions for unmet needs. That said, I know I have a lot to learn and for the time being I am trying to accumulate as much experience as possible. Currently, my engagements range from iGEM to other work at BioCurious to my new job at OncoMed Pharmaceuticals and a biology internship at NASA.

Andrew Elkins

I am a Computational Biology student at Berkeley City College. I have some prior experience with web design/development. I also used to be a cook in fine dining.

Phillip Wantuck

Recent bay area transplant from New York. I have a Chemistry degree from Penn State and a MS in Materials Science and Engineering from Rochester Institute of Technology.

I have spent the past 7 years working for Xerox in various engineering and R&D positions working with novel and performance polymer, fluoropolymer and rubber compounds. I also have composite formulation experience with graphene, CNT's, nano diamonds as well as multiple other types of organic and inorganic thermally conductive and abrasion resistant fillers. I have taken these formulations from initial conception to prototype / field test for use in multiple products. Almost all of the aforementioned development work relied on Designed Experiments for a rapid 1 year development cycle.

I currently work for Agilent Technologies as a Sr. Process Engineer in the Microarray manufacturing center (Oligo's, sure select, surefish, etc...). I have no background in biology, however, I am looking to expand my knowledge in this area.

Advisors

Patrik D'haeseleer

PhD, Computer Science

Patrik D’haeseleer is a bioinformatician by day, mad scientist by night. He is a cofounder of Counter Culture Labs, community projects coordinator and leader of the BioPrinter group at BioCurious, and scientific advisor of the Glowing Plant project. He participated in iGEM 2004 as part of the Harvard/BU team while doing his postdoc at the Church lab.

Maria Chavez

MBA, Global Management

Maria has a diverse background and experience. She has been involved with BioCurious and the community lab projects for over 3 years. She is enthusiastic about science and DIY Bio.

Advait Patil

High School Student

Advait is a student who has a passion for science, biology, and synthetic biology. He interned in the Devaraj lab at UCSD and investigated the use of phospholipid vesicles as microreactor milleu. He is also a USA Biology Olympiad Semifinalist (top 500 in the US), and is on his school's science bowl team. He is sincerely determined to learn about and participate in synthetic biology. He is a board member for the Real Vegan Cheese project, and is excited to be a part of this year's iGEM team!

Eric Harness

R&D scientist with experience in assay development with a focus in sample imaging and data acquisition using different types of hardware platforms. Aided the design and development of genomics analysis tools for research and diagnostic applications. Experience with a wide array of molecular biology techniques.

Maria Teresa Chavez

Background: did research at UCSF for about a year on the multiple sclerosis microbiome. Did an internship at Transcriptic, mostly worked on cloning and phenotyping. Briefly played around with NGS. Went to medical school for 6 months and studied computer science for 5 months at some point as well. Now: I am an intern at Perlstein Lab doing chemical modifier screens in yeast models of ALS (TDP43 WT, FUS WT, TDP43 M337V) and am about to start college at UC Berkeley as an intended math and computer science double major

Rikke Rasmussen

M.Sc., Plant Pathology

Manufacturing scientist at a Redwood City biotech startup with a background in molecular plant pathology and plant genetics. Member of Counter Culture Labs and regular at the BioCurious Plant Bio Group.