Jenna Klein

is a rising sophomore at MIT studying Materials Science and Engineering with a Minor in Biology. Jenna is excited about participating in iGEM because she wants to learn more about synthetic biology. She is interested in synthetic biology because after many years of athletics, she has experienced injury and encountered both kids and adults who have not been able to play a sport because of their physical disabilities. She believes that people can’t control diseases that they might be born with, and that shouldn’t keep people out. In the future, she wants to be able to design something in order to improve the lives of other people. She likes how iGEM is a rare experience where she can come up with her own project idea and work on it with the team. In the past year, she has been conducting research with the Langer Lab at MIT, working on building a scaffold which can be electrically stimulated to allow nerve cells to regenerate faster and with less scar tissue. Jenna is also a goalie for MIT’s Men’s Ice Hockey Team and Varsity Field Hockey Team and a sister of Sigma Kappa sorority.

Katie Bodner

is a rising sophomore at MIT studying biological engineering. Her research interests span drug delivery, neurobiological systems and tissue regeneration, but she is especially excited by synthetic biology. Katie is interested in the biomedical applications of synthetic biology, specifically in ways in which we can make cancer therapeutics easier to engineer by designing circuits to detect and destroy cancer cells. iGEM interests her because of the unique opportunity to design a project with extraordinary applications such as cancer therapeutics or biochemical synthesis along with other undergraduates who are also passionate about synthetic biology and under inspirational faculty mentors. After MIT, Katie hopes to pursue her Ph.D in Biological Engineering and reach her goal of improving the lives of those affected by unfortunate diseases and carcinomas.  Katie is also the assistant sports editor of The Tech newspaper, a sister of Alpha Phi Sorority and a Resident Associate Advisor to freshmen in Maseeh Hall, an undergraduate dormitory.

Nathan Kipniss

is a member of the class of 2014 at MIT studying Biological Engineering. He decided to participate in iGEM not only to conduct interesting research, but also to develop the ways of thinking required by original work. Previous to iGEM, he studied host-pathogen interactions and systems biology research at the Broad Institute. His research interests include systems biology and regenerative medicine. After undergraduate studies at MIT, he then hopes to pursue a career in biological engineering that will solve medical problems. While not in lab, Nathan is a cellist in the MIT Symphony Orchestra and the secretary of Simmons Hall.

Felix Sun

is studying Electrical Engineering and Computer Science (course 6-2) as a member of the MIT Class of 2015.  He is participating in iGEM because he thinks engineering biology can solve a wide range of problems, in areas ranging from health care to energy to food.  For him, iGEM is an opportunity to experience the excitement firsthand, and to evaluate synthetic biology against his own EECS-related interests and abilities.  This will be Felix’s first biology-related research role.  Outside of iGEM, Felix is a member of the Experimental Study Group, a unique and storied learning community at MIT.  He sings in concert choir, helps run the Harvard-MIT Mathematics Tournament, and works for the online math enrichment site Art of Problem Solving, where he TAs classes and grades papers.

Ala’a Siam

is a rising sophomore at MIT majoring in computer science and electric engineering, and chemical-biological engineering. He also aims to minor in chemistry and public policy. His research interests span computational biophysics, structural biology, organic-inorganic interfaces, biologically inspired electronics, optimized chemical engineering, and health systems. Besides iGEM, he is currently involved in a drug-delivery, protein engineering project in Langer lab and in biotechnology policy research with Professor Kenneth Oye. He decided to join iGEM because he believes that synthetic biology has the potential to significantly transform the lives of people. He also hopes that the skills he will obtain from iGEM will influence his medical studies, as he aspires to earn an MD-PHD.  Ala’a also acts as the treasurer of MEET (Middle East Education through Technology), an android developer in the Media Lab telemedicine initiative SANA, a founding member of MIT’s chapter of UAEM (Universities Allied for Essential Medicine), the distinguished guests coordinator of MIT Biomedical Engineering Society, and as a member of MIT’s NEWDIGS (NEW Drugs Development Initiatives).

Kristjan Eerik Kaseniit

is a rising junior in the new Computer Science and Molecular Biology program at MIT. He comes from Estonia, where among other recognitions he received the highest award in a competition for young inventors. Eerik is interested in solving problems from computer science by using biology. He has previously worked on minimizing unwanted protein-DNA interactions and visualizing real-time datasets. Eerik was thrilled about iGEM when he first heard about it -- in essence playing with LEGOs and getting to choose your own thing to build from them. He plans to tie his undergraduate and graduate academic careers to synthetic biology. He also hopes to explore education, after having had a good experience being a laboratory assistant for the introductory EECS course at MIT. In his free time, Eerik plays the drums and accordion.

Robert Learsch

is a member of the class of 2015 at MIT and studying biological engineering. With interests in drug design and biomedical applications of the biological engineering field, Robert felt that iGEM presented a perfect opportunity to learn about the research process and confirm that he wants to pursue biological engineering. Robert hopes to integrate the elegance of well-engineered systems into the framework of biology. Since students design their own project in iGEM, from the experimental process down to the individual DNA sequence, he feels as though it serves as a perfect test for future plans. Robert, undecided on a future career, plans to establish options to break into industry, graduate work, and medical school during his undergraduate career. In addition to the beauty of biology and biological engineering, Robert is also passionate about rowing. He spends innumerable hours on the Charles River rowing for MIT’s lightweight Crew team, and serves on the governing body of MacGregor House, his dormitory.

Lihn Vuong

is a rising senior at MIT majoring in Biology and double minoring in Management and Chemistry. Her research interests concern cancer, cardiology and immunology. She feels as though synthetic biology is an incredibly creative field where the sky is the limit. From modifying the genetic code to a quadruplet code, to re-programming bacteria as a drug delivery device, synthetic biology will give rise to the next-generation technologies, which can be applied to a broad range of applications such as materials, pharmaceuticals, medicine and agriculture. As a member of the 2012 MIT iGEM team, she feels as though she will not only be able to enrich her knowledge in the field of synthetic biology, in particular RNA computing, but also gain significant research and leadership skills that will help her greatly in her aspiration to become a physician. Previously, Linh has worked at the Centre de Recherche en Cancerologie-Leon Berard in Lyon, France working on the role of TGF-beta signaling pathway in activation and expansion of autoreactive B cells, in the Whitehead Institute for Biomedical Research-Sabatini Lab on cell-based microarrays, in the Institute of Molecular Cell Biology in Singapore on the Characterization of PreS1 promoter of Hepatitis B virus and at the Institute of Molecular Engineering and Biotechnology on the Synthetis of biodegradable injectable hydrogel system from Hyaluronic acid Epigallocatechin gallate. Outside of research, Linh is an MIT Admissions Blogger, a sister of Sigma Kappa sorority, an MIT Ambassador, a Medlink, an Arts Scholar, on the MIT Ballroom dance team and a writer for The Tech.

Chelsea Voss

is a rising sophomore at MIT majoring in course 6-7 (Computer Science and Molecular Biology). Her research interests include computational biochemistry and biophysics, DNA computing, and computational phylogenetics. She ultimately wants to do research with an emphasis on using computational methods to tackle biological problems. Being a part of the 2012 MIT iGEM team, will allow her to see whether synthetic biology is a field she wants to look into more closely, while giving her experience in biology lab work and in what conducting scientific research is like. As someone with a background in both computer science and biology, the 2012 MIT iGEM team’s research interests her because she would like to see more ways for the two fields to reinforce each other. Previously, Chelsea served as a counselor for the USA Biology Olympiad 2012, helped mentor high school students in biology skills and lab techniques and collaborated to prepare an intense lab practical exam. She also conducted research under Dr. David Dill, Stanford computer science department, in summer 2010 studying boolean, asynchronous models of signaling pathways by programming and analyzing a model of aspects of C. elegans development.

Wilson Louie

is a rising sophomore studying Chemical Biological Engineering at MIT. He decided to participate in iGEM because he finds the idea of manipulating the properties of life, polished by billions of years of evolution, to affect a desirable outcome intriguing and appealing. He also hopes to gain invaluable experiences and skills that will promote his future career in synthetic biology. Previous to iGEM, he has worked in the Laboratory of Molecular Biophysics at Rockefeller University, attempting to elucidate a high-resolution structure of Thermus aquaticus σ70, a protein vital to transcription initiation, and of an analogous transcription initiation factor in T4 bacteriophage called gene protein 55. Outside the lab, Wilson enjoys working with friends on building a Parallel Computing Cluster from scratch, and also enjoys programming and playing the violin and piano.

Louis Lamia

is pursuing a degree in Electrical Engineering and Computer Science as a member of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology’s class of 2014. Louis decided to participate in iGEM because he felt it was a unique opportunity to use his knowledge of computer science and programming to solve biological problems that could possibly lay the foundation for future technology in areas such as medicine and industry. He was also excited to further his research in the dynamic field of synthetic biology after having previously conducted research in the lab of MIT professor, Timothy Lu. When not in lab, Louis is kept busy with his involvement in his fraternity, Theta Delta Chi, where he is the recording secretary. He also enjoys acting in his free time and is a director for the Dramashop Theatre Ensemble. Louis also participates in a wide variety of volunteer activities such as going on the Saint Marcellin Society Service Trip to Peru in July of 2010 where he assisted in the construction of a local school.

Kenneth Hu

is a rising junior at MIT. His participation in iGEM came from the realization that synthetic and systems biology uses the elegant fundamentals of physics to solve the interesting problems of biology. He has extensive biochemical laboratory experience through working with Toxoplasma gondii, and has gained valuable experience in analyzing gene sequencing data, designing gene constructs for transgenic research, and fluorescence microscopy. Other skills include tissue hood protocol, RNA extraction, and microarray analysis. He has a paper published, titled “σE Stress Response in Mutagenesis.” During the semester, he is also a teaching assistant for MIT’s introductory biology course, teaching bi- weekly recitations and preparing course materials for around 20 hours of work per week. In addition to his research experience, he ranked top in the nation as a finalist for the three separate competitions National Physics, Chemistry, and Biology Olympiad. Upon graduation, he hopes to continue his research in synthetic and systems biology as a graduate student, and then continue his work as a postdoc and secure a position at some academic institution.

Tiffany Huang

is pursuing a degree in Electrical Engineering and Computer Science as a member of MIT’s class of 2013. From the cutting edge research and technology, to the infinite possibilities of working with the fabric of evolution, it was hard for Tiffany not to find synthetic biology interesting. She wanted to return to the lab to gain an appreciation for research and help pioneer an emerging field through this unique opportunity, although she anticipates devoting her future to programming and computer science. She has a strong command over Java and Python through years of experience in using the two languages, and has worked with front-end web design as well as back-end programming. Tiffany exercises her artistic side through web design, photography, drawing, and violin. She also enjoys teaching, having worked closely with high school students to teach a weekly three-hour Advanced Placement Physics class.

Ron Weiss

joined the BE and EECS faculties as dual associate professor (with tenure) starting in July 2009, having moved from Princeton University where he held comparable rank in their department of electrical engineering and with a joint appointment in their department of molecular biology. His degrees are double BA in Computer Science and Economics from Brandeis University (1992), followed by SM and PhD in EECS at MIT (1994, 2001). Professor Weiss is a prominent and widely respected figure in the emerging field known as ‘synthetic biology’, with emphasis on designing molecular circuits governing cell behavior using quantitative systems modeling approaches. He is expected to help lead MIT’s efforts in both synthetic biology and systems biology, and indeed to guide their integration.

Jonathan Babb

is currently performing research to extend the life of silicon technology as well as to create the next generation of carbon-based computing platforms in the emergent fields of synthetic biology and BioCAD. Formerly, Jonathan was a lecturer at Princeton University and founder and CEO of a logic emulation startup. Dr. Babb earned a BS in electrical engineering from the Georgia Institute of Technology and an SM and PhD in electrical engineering and computer science from MIT. He is a member of the IEEE.

Deepak Mishra

is a NSF Graduate Fellow in MIT Biological Engineering and a student in Ron Weiss' Synthetic Biology Group. He is interested in synthetic protein phosphorylation networks and the emergence of multicellularity from single celed organisms. Deepak is a returning instructor and been instrumental in our success thus far.

Linda Griffith

heads the Griffith Lab at MIT. She was an Area Head for the Bioengineering and Mechanical Engineering Department. She is also the director of the MIT Biotechnology Process Engineering Center as well as a professor of Mechanical and Biological Engineering at MIT.

Timothy Lu

has a PhD in Electrical and Biomedical Engineering from MIT in 2008. He is currently completing his MD degree in the Harvard/MIT HST program. In addition to other awards, Dr. Lu is the Lemelson-MIT student prize winner in 2008. In his PhD work with James Collins at BU/HHMI, Tim built and modeled artificial memory systems and counters in bacteria, and developed methods for delivering synthetically engineered bacteriophage to infection sites. His research focus is the development of synthetic-biology based solutions for pressing medical and industrial problems, using concepts from electronic circuits and systems design. His current focus is inventing effective treatments for infectious diseases and cancer using synthetic biology.

Tom Knight

is a senior research scientist in the MIT Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Laboratory, part of the MIT School of Engineering. Inspired in part by the work of Harold Morowitz, a Yale physicist and biologist, Knight studied biochemistry, genetics, and cellular biology, and set up a biology lab within MIT's Laboratory for Computer Science. In this lab he created the concept of the BioBrick and began creating a library of BioBricks that could be used to build biological computation structures. Today, BioBricks form the basis of the iGEM (International Genetically Engineered Machine) competition. Knight continues to focus on Synthetic Biology at the Knight Laboratory.

Linda Griffith

heads the Griffith Lab at MIT. She was an Area Head for the Bioengineering and Mechanical Engineering Department. She is also the director of the MIT Biotechnology Process Engineering Center as well as a professor of Mechanical and Biological Engineering at MIT.

Roger Kamm

is the Germeshausen Professor of Mechanical and Biological Engineering and Associate Head of the Department of Mechanical Engineering at MIT. A primary objective of Kamm’s research group has been the application of fundamental concepts in fluid and solid mechanics to better understand essential biological and physiological phenomena. Studies over the past thirty years have addressed issues in the respiratory, ocular and cardiovascular systems. More recently, his attention has focused on two new areas, the molecular mechanisms of cellular force sensation, and the development of new scaffold materials and microfluidic technologies for vascularized engineered tissues. Kamm is a Fellow of the American Institute for Biomedical Engineering and the American Society for Mechanical Engineering. He is the current chair of the US National Committee on Biomechanics and the World Council on Biomechanics, and Director of the Global Enterprise for Micro Mechanics and Molecular Medicine.

Natalie Kuldell

did her doctoral and post-doctoral work at Harvard Medical School. She develops discovery-based curricula drawn from the current literature to engage undergraduate students in structured, reasonably authentic laboratory experiences. She has also written educational materials to improve scientific communication as it occurs across disciplinary boundaries and as it's taught in undergraduate subjects. Her research examines gene expression in eukaryotic cells, focusing most recently on synthetic biology and redesign of the yeast mitochondria. She serves as Associate Education Director for SynBERC, an NSF-funded research center for Synthetic Biology, and Councilor at Large for the Institute of Biological Engineering.

Mark Bathe

joined MIT BE as an assistant professor in January 2009. Mark received his SB (1998), MS (2001), and Ph.D. (2004) in Mechanical Engineering from MIT, with his Ph.D. thesis supervised by Professor Bruce Tidor on computational analysis of proteoglycan and glycosaminoglycan structure and mechanics. During the period 2005-2008 he undertook postdoctoral work as an Alexander von Humboldt Research Fellow, first with Professor Erwin Frey at Ludwig Maximilian University in Munich Germany on theoretical modeling of cytoskeletal dynamics and then with Professor Marie France Carlier at CNRS in Paris France pursuing related cellular biophysics experiments. He has focused his efforts on multi-scale modeling from protein sequence to structure to spatio-temporal dynamics informed by microscopic imaging experimentation, as part of the highly collaborative Laboratory for Integrative Computational Cell Biology & Biophysics.

Peter Andrew Carr

focuses on increasing the scale at which we can engineer organisms, up to entire genomes. Current projects in my lab include: 1) high throughput microfluidic gene and protein synthesis for rapid prototyping of engineered genetic systems; 2) re-engineering the genetic code of microbesproviding plug-and-play capabilities for non-natural amino acids, and constructing "genetic firewalls" to block gene flow to and from of these organisms; 3) error correction methods for de novo synthesized DNA; 4) Control systems and safety standards for engineered organisms. I received my bachelors degree in biochemistry from Harvard College and my Ph.D. in biochemistry and molecular biophysics from Columbia University.

Lab Website

Rahul Sarpeshkar

obtained his Bachelor's degrees in Electrical Engineering and Physics at MIT. After completing his PhD at Caltech, he joined Bell Labs as a member of technical staff in the department of Biological Computation within its Physics division. Since 1999, he has been on the faculty of MIT's Electrical Engineering and Computer Science Department where he heads a research group on Analog Circuits and Biological Systems . His invention of cytomorphic electronics, outlined in his recent book, Ultra Low Power Bioelectronics: Fundamentals, Biomedical Applications, and Bio-inspired Systems, has established an important bridge between electronics and chemistry. This work lays a foundation for a rigorous analog circuits approach to systems biology and synthetic biology. His current research on synthetic biology applies analog circuit techniques to the design, analysis, implementation, and supercomputing chip-based simulation of biochemical networks in E coli and yeast. It has applications in architecting a scalable platform technology and conceptual framework for design that is broadly applicable in all of synthetic biology. It also has specific applications in the treatment of diabetes, antibiotic resistance, and the design of microbial fuel cells. He has received several awards including the NSF Career Award, the ONR Young Investigator Award, the Packard Fellows Award and the Indus Technovator Award for his interdisciplinary bioengineering research.

Narendra Maheshri

is an Assistant Professor of Chemical Engineering at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT). He has bachelor’s degrees in both Chemical Engineering and Biology from MIT, and a PhD in Chemical Engineering from the University of California (UC) Berkeley, where he focused on engineering viral vectors for gene therapy. In his post-doctoral studies at UC San Francisco and Harvard, he became interested in systems’ biology and gene regulation. His current research interests are in understanding the dynamics of gene regulation and gene regulatory networks in single cells using a combined experimental and theoretical approach.

Jacob Rubens

is a Ph.D. student in the MIT Microbiology program and a student of Tim Lu in the RLE Synthetic Biology Group. He is interested in developing synthetic biology tools to investigate and exploit the human microbiome for therapeutic purposes as well as optimizing biological circuit engineering methods. Jacob is an alum of the Washington University iGEM team.

Jordan Whisler

is a second year graduate student in the MIT Mechanical Engineering department. He is a research assistant for Roger Kamm and specializes in using microfluidic techniques to control tissue formation and patterning, specifically with respect to the microvasculature.

Allen Lin

is an M. Eng student in the Electrical Engineering and Computer Science department and a member of the Weiss lab. He is interested in developing engineering principles of synthetic genetic circuits, using methods from control theory, for health and energy applications. Allen is an alum of the Caltech iGEM team.

Feng Zhang

is an assistant professor is MIT's department of Brain and Cognitive Sciences.

Biography

Domitilla Del Vecchio

is a Keck Career Development Assistant Professor at MIT's department of Mechanical Engineering.

Biography

Jacquin Niles

is a Pfizer-Laubach Career Development Assistant Professor of Biological Engineering at MIT's department of Biological Engineering.

Biography