Christopher Brigham Email & Phone Number

Background: My PhD and postdoctoral training have been in molecular microbiology. For my thesis work, I studied sugar utilization of the medically significant organism Bacteroides fragilis, in vitro and in vivo. Currently, I work on polyhydroxyalkanoate production in wild-type and recombinant Ralstonia eutropha. Our group is creating new strains of Ralstonia eutropha to produce polyhydroxyalkanoate copolymers from palm oil and palm oil mill effluent. This project is being done in collaboration with several organizations in Malaysia. For this collaboration, I was in charge of strain construction on the MIT end of the collaboration. Studies included microarray analysis on Ralstonia eutropha during different stages of PHB homeostasis. I have also investigated fatty acid and organic acid catabolism and PHA homeostasis and regulation in R. eutropha. I previously co-authored a grant proposal to ARPA-e to produce isobutanol from autotrophic R. eutropha, a project in which was ultimately funded. Currently, I am teaching faculty at University of Massachusetts Dartmouth in the Bioengineering department. I run the senior capstone design program for the department and am teaching Synthetic Biology, as well as some graduate (MS) courses. From 2018-2023, I taught Biological Engineering courses at Wentworth Institute of Technology. My specialties are: Bioengineering introductory courses, Chemistry, Biotransport, Metabolic Engineering, Molecular Biology, Synthetic Biology, engineering design. In the future, I plan to head a biomanufacturing suite which is in development on the UMass Dartmouth campus.Specialties: Molecular biology techniques: PCR and other DNA manipulation techniques, molecular cloning, protein purification. Biochemistry techniques: enzyme assays, spectrophotometry, HPLC, GC, TLC, Western blotting. Microbiology techniques: microbial growth and physiology techniques, growth media formulation, fermentation. Other: technical writing, cell culture experience. Leadership skills: supervisor of visiting graduate and undergraduate students (Tufts and MIT), captain of softball teams (MIT and Tufts).

Listed skills include Molecular Biology, Biochemistry, Microbiology, Cell Culture, and 20 others.