• In addition to Senior Scientist Lab duties; responsible for maintaining a functioning biotech laboratory environment. Overseeing the facilities team, the equipment team, the Lab operation team, and the safety team. Making sure that the Lab function on a day-to-day basis, is constantly adapting to new scientific demands as well as complying with all city, state, and federal regulations.

• Leading a new project to build a strain to produce Taurine incorporating an automated synthetic biology pipeline; including pathway design, external collaboration with Nataur LLC, and working with the process development, downstream process, and analytical to produce initial product samples.• Helped design and implement a fully automated synthetic biology system for E. coli and Yeast based on the system developed by my team in Corynebacterium.• Lead the team collaborating with MIT to produce an industrially relevant strain producing Vitamin K2; this work included developing new intellectual property; process development work, working with Google-X on metabolomics. Strain is currently being scaled to 240K Liters. • Overseeing the development of Nutraceutical producing strains in Corynebacterium glutamicum from initial strain development to factory scale (>5000 Liter) coordinating the efforts of strain development; process development, and down-stream processing.

• Expand internal Corynebacterium glutamicum synthetic biology toolbox to facilitate rapid strain development with a MoClo context including plasmid development, knock-out generation, promoter constructs, and silencing techniques. Focusing on identifying both FTO technology as well as IP generation. • Adapted Corynebacterium as a platform for either polyketide synthase or chorismate derived products.• Lead small team research group driving new product innovation including project proposals, research collaborations, and patent applications.

• Develop high through-put screen of UDPG dependent enzymes in E. coli.• Develop and screen new pichia pastoris strains for improved protein production.• Design and implement new synthetic pathways to produce natural compounds via Bioprocesses.

1. Previously, the Gonzalez lab had demonstrated the production of high titers of Butanol from E. coli from the modification of global regulators on the genomic scale. Taking this knowledge, we have identified the genes necessary to produce both butyric and Butanol from E. coli without the modification of global regulators. Currently, through funding by BASF, we are expanding this to produce longer chain alcohols, acids, diacids as well as other novel substitutions through additional enzymes. My work focuses on preparation of the pathways at the vector level as well as the identification and kinetic characterizations of these enzymes in both in vivo and in vitro. This work also includes the identifying the unknown crotonyl-CoA reductase utilized during the engineered reversal of β-oxidation in E. Coli, developing a novel assay for the functional screening of Co-A transferases as well as the purification and screening of membrane and anaerobic enzymes.2. Expanding on the previous work in the Schmidt-Dannert lab, we are further optimizing the CSD BioBrick system. This includes expanding the available plasmid backbones, providing alternative IPTG inducible systems, providing vectors without regulatory protein expression in multi-vector systems as well as adapting the cumate induction system to the CSD BioBrick system.

Post-doc focusing on synthetic biology. Assembled a pathway for the production of lignols in E. Coli as a feeder system towards bioactive native products. Managed the development of of a comprehensive pathway for assembly and protein expression system fusing the past Schmidt-Dannert system with BioBricks. Assembled the cannabinoid production pathway from Cannabis sativa. Utilized directed evolution and biochemical characterization of chitin binding proteins (CBPs) to understand how these proteins function to disrupt the crystalline structure of macromolecules like chitin and cellulose.

1. A directed evolution and biochemical characterization of chitin binding proteins (CBPs) to understand how these proteins function to disrupt the crystalline structure of macromolecules like chitin and cellulose.• Collaborative project with the laboratory of Professor Vincent Eijsink of Norwegian University of Life Sciences (UMB) in Ås, Norway• Developed a high through put screening method based on the binding of the β-chitin specific CBP21 protein from Serratia marcescens towards both α-chitin and crystalline cellulose.• Used site saturated libraries to identify mutants of CBP21 that increased the binding of CBP21 towards α-chitin and cellulose.• Based on these mutants, the publication of the structure of a divergently evolved cellulose binding protein (CEL61B) and the identification of a necessary divalent metal on the active face; developed a model for how CBP21 behaves as a electrostatically driven mechanical protein• Used fluorescence, circular dichroism, binding assays and activity assays in conjunction with additional site-directed mutants to test this model.2. The assembly of the lignol production pathway from Arabidopsis thaliana as a feeder pathway for the study of dirigent proteins.• Cloned and assembled the three gene pathway from Arabidopsis thaliana to produce lignol in vivo in Escherichia coli• Carried out feeding studies using common precursor phenolic acids to monitor the production of lignols in vivo via UV/VIS and MS HPLC analysis.• Synthesized the Forsythia intermedia dirigent protein gene optimized for E. coli via assembly PCR and cloned the small laccase from Streptomyces coelicolor A3(2) for the study of dirigent proteins.3. The assembly of the cannabinoid production pathway from Cannabis sativa 4.Assisted in the development of, and managed the completion of a comprehensive pathway assembly and protein expression system fusing the past Schmidt-Dannert system with BioBricksTM (CSD-BioBricks).