EBRC In Translation

In this episode, we speak with Janice Chen, co-founder and CTO of Mammoth Biosciences. From her PhD work in Jennifer Doudna's lab to co-founding a biotech startup, Dr. Chen discusses her journey of translating scientific discoveries into real-world applications. Learn about the development of CRISPR-based diagnostics, including a rapid COVID-19 test, and gain insights into the evolving landscape of gene editing therapeutics. Dr. Chen also offers valuable advice for scientists looking to bridge the gap between academia and industry.

For more information about EBRC, visit our website at ebrc.org. If you are interested in getting involved with the EBRC Student and Postdoc Association, fill out a membership application for graduate students and postdocs or for undergraduates and join today!

Episode transcripts are the unedited output from Whisper and likely contain errors.

In this episode, we talk to Sebastian Cocioba, a self-taught, independent researcher who designs flowers and develops tools that lower the entry barrier for others to do biology research. We talk with Sebastian about his unique path to Engineering Biology, his experience with DIY biology, the importance of open science, the role of citizen scientists in engineering biology, and much more!

During the episode, Sebastian mentions that he recently started a YouTube channel, which you can find here.

https://www.youtube.com/@ATinyGreenCell

For more information about EBRC, visit our website at ebrc.org. If you are interested in getting involved with the EBRC Student and Postdoc Association, fill out a membership application for graduate students and postdocs or for undergraduates and join today!

Episode transcripts are the unedited output from Whisper and likely contain errors.

In this episode, we interview Dr. Prachee Avasthi, Co-founder and CSO of Arcadia Science and previous Associate Professor of Biochemistry and Cell Biology at Dartmouth. We talk with Prachee about her many layers of experiments, from mining new biological tools to building new organizational structures for open science. We also talk with her about non-canonical career paths, science publishing models, and much more!

For more information about EBRC, visit our website at ebrc.org. If you are interested in getting involved with the EBRC Student and Postdoc Association, fill out a membership application for graduate students and postdocs or for undergraduates and join today!

Episode transcripts are the unedited output from Whisper and likely contain errors.

In this episode, we interview Drew Endy, a professor in the Department of Biological Engineering at Stanford University. We talk to Drew about making the engineering of living systems routine, how biology is the perfect technology to interface with joules, bits, and atoms, the concept of synbiophobia-phobia, teaching biological literacy via the “Labrary”, the new discipline of Awestronomy, and so much more.

In this episode, Drew mentions several interesting reads:
The Genesis of a Curriculum on Biological Engineering
The Morals of Measurement
Homo Ludens

For more information about EBRC, visit our website at ebrc.org. If you are interested in getting involved with the EBRC Student and Postdoc Association, fill out a membership application for graduate students and postdocs or for undergraduates and join today!

Episode transcripts are the unedited output from Whisper and likely contain errors.

In this episode, we interview Geoffrey Otim, founder and CEO of SynBio Africa and founder of iGEM Makarere, the first iGEM team in East Africa. We discuss the unique health, agricultural, climate, biosecurity, and energy challenges being tackled by the emerging engineering biology community in Africa. We also talk about his policy advocacy, African Union-led initiatives, and the cultural, political, and funding headwinds faced by African scientists.

For more information about EBRC, visit our website at ebrc.org. If you are interested in getting involved with the EBRC Student and Postdoc Association, fill out a membership application for graduate students and postdocs or for undergraduates and join today!

Episode transcripts are the unedited output from Whisper and likely contain errors.

In this episode, we interview Dr. John Inglis and Dr. Richard Sever, the executive director and assistant director respectively of the Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory Press. John and Richard also co-founded both bioRxiv and medRxiv, the primary preprint servers for biological and medical research. We discuss what makes the Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory Press unique, how they founded bioRxiv and medRxiv, how preprinting allows us to do experiments on the publication system itself, and much more!

In the episode, John recommends a book on career options for biomedical scientists.

Note from the editor: Unfortunately, there were some minor issues with Richard's source audio which resulted in some occasional skipping. Our apologies for this!

For more information about EBRC, visit our website at ebrc.org. If you are interested in getting involved with the EBRC Student and Postdoc Association, fill out a membership application for graduate students and postdocs or for undergraduates and join today!

Episode transcripts are the unedited output from Whisper and likely contain errors.

In this episode, we speak with Dr. Sean Simpson, strategic advisor and former CSO of LanzaTech. We talk with Sean about using biology to convert greenhouse gases into ethanol, how to scale up and sell a novel biological process, and the economic and policy requirements of engineering biology for global challenges.

For more information about EBRC, visit our website at ebrc.org. If you are interested in getting involved with the EBRC Student and Postdoc Association, fill out a membership application for graduate students and postdocs or for undergraduates and join today!

Episode transcripts are the unedited output from Whisper and likely contain errors.

In this episode, we interview Dr. Tony Kulesa, a Principal at the VC firm Pillar. We talk to Tony about his work to open source the biotech company creation process, overrated and underrated investment theses, reading and writing to all the different scales of biology and more!

To learn more about founder-led biotech, check out some of Tony's writing on the topic here.

For more information about EBRC, visit our website at ebrc.org. If you are interested in getting involved with the EBRC Student and Postdoc Association, fill out a membership application for graduate students and postdocs or for undergraduates and join today!

Episode transcripts are the unedited output from Whisper and likely contain errors.

In this episode, we speak with Melissa Takahashi, an Assistant Professor at California State University Northridge in the Department of Biology. We talk with Melissa about her research on the biological principles behind RNA gene regulation in bacteria, being a professor at a primarily undergraduate institution, helping students realize they can be scientists, and more!

For more information about EBRC, visit our website at ebrc.org. If you are interested in getting involved with the EBRC Student and Postdoc Association, fill out a membership application for graduate students and postdocs or for undergraduates and join today!

Episode transcripts are the unedited output from Whisper and likely contain errors.

In this episode, we are joined by Dr. Mustafa Khammash, Professor of Control Theory and Systems Biology in the Department of Biosystems Science and Engineering at ETH-Zurich. We talk with Mustafa about integrating control theory into synthetic biology, designing computer/biology interfaces, starting a wet lab as a tenured computational professor, the need for new theoretical frameworks for biological design, and more!

Notes:

During the episode, Dr. Khammash references two different papers from his lab, linked below.

Cybergenetics: Theory and Applications of Genetic Control Systems

Universal structural requirements for maximal robust perfect adaptation in biomolecular networks

For more information about EBRC, visit our website at ebrc.org. If you are interested in getting involved with the EBRC Student and Postdoc Association, fill out a membership application for graduate students and postdocs or for undergraduates and join today!

Episode transcripts are the unedited output from Whisper and likely contain errors.