Scientist with over 15 years of laboratory experience in both academic and industrial settings. My current role at Janssen Pharmaceutical Companies of Johnson & Johnson is focused on developing technologies for gene therapy applications.Most of my research efforts at the Duke Molecular Physiology Institute (DMPI) were focused on exploring epigenetic, metabolic, and extracellular signaling pathways that contribute to the function, survival, and proliferation of the pancreatic islet beta-cells in an effort to uncover novel therapeutic targets for the treatment of type 2 diabetes. As part of these efforts, I conceived and deployed novel modular cloning platforms (pMVP & pMAGIC; PMID: 30590691; Addgene Kit #1000000155) to enable the rapid creation of vectors (adenovirus, lentivirus, Sleeping Beauty/PiggyBac transposon) for genetic manipulation via transgene expression, RNAi, and/or Cas9-based epigenetic engineering in primary islets and other disease models. During my time at DMPI, I was also fortunate to be part of a multitude of interdisciplinary academic and industrial collaborations. These interactions further confirmed my penchant for working with cross-disciplinary teams that deploy their diverse skillsets to tackle previously intractable scientific pursuits. My roles in these activities spanned from project conception to experimental investigation; however, the recurrent role I had in all these collaborative endeavors was the design/creation of vectors that enabled delivery of transgenes/RNAi/CRISPR tools tailored to the hypotheses being investigated.A list of my research publications can be found at: https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=XXSfidAAAAAJ&hl=en .