Team:BrownStanfordPrinctn/Team
Meet Team BrownStanfordPrinceton!
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Mary Elizabeth AdlerMary Elizabeth is a sophomore at Princeton University pursuing a degree in Chemical and Biological Engineering. She is particularly interested in the application of synthetic biology to future space settlement and exploration. Outside the lab, she enjoys singing in the Princeton Katzenjammers and watching scary movies. This summer, Mary Elizabeth focused on the diagnostic branch of the Astropharmacy, worked to replicate microfluidic devices with fusion proteins, and contributed wiki content. --- |
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William BrakewoodWilliam Brakewood: William is a sophomore at Brown pursuing a degree in Chemical Engineering. In his spare time, William also works for NASA’s Department of Coverups, where he photoshops pictures of the flat Earth to make it look like a sphere. This summer, William focused on the purification branch of the Astropharmacy, designing, fabricating, and testing microfluidic prototypes for the team's expression chip and chromatography modules. He also chipped in on wiki content. |
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Teaghan CowlesTeaghan is a senior at Stanford pursuing a degree in Bioengineering with a minor in Comparative Literature. She is also on the varsity Stanford softball team. Catch the team on the field in the spring! This summer, Teaghan specialized in cell-free media synthesis, public outreach, integrated human practices, and organizing the wiki. |
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Allison LinAllison is a junior at Brown pursuing a degree in Biochemistry & Molecular Biology. Outside the lab, she is interested in music, origami, baking, and obtaining a legal human growth hormone prescription because she is 4'11". This summer, Allison worked on designing and cloning DNA constructs, expressing and purifying drugs and proteins used to test the microfluidic chips, and writing for the wiki. |
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Cale LesterCale received his bachelor's degree in Bioengineering from Stanford University in 2019. In real life he likes to cook, bake, and eat food. He's been isolated in the lab for awhile and seems to have forgotten what a pinecone is. As the Student Lead of the team, Cale has worked on just about every aspect of the project from microfluidics to drug production to wiki content. |
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Cameron ParkCameron received her bachelor’s degrees in Physics and Human Biology from Stanford University in 2018. She is currently a master’s student at Stanford studying Bioengineering. She has definitely accomplished a lot this summer, including learning that light is not a gas. Cameron worked on many aspects of the project, including lypholization, Tx/Tl media synthesis, cloning, device fabrication, and more (e.g. wiki). |
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Alley RempeAlley is a rising senior studying Neurobiology at Brown University and Apparel Design at RISD. When Alley is not in the lab she enjoys leading workout classes, sewing, traveling, and playing hockey. Alley is a fraternal twin and 2010 Disneyland hula-hoop champion. This summer, Alley was in charge of designing the logo and apparel and helped with the posters and presentations. |
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Alex SomeraAlex is currently a sophomore studying Aerospace Engineering at Stanford University. Alex is a savage known for shredding it up on his skateboard, doing donuts in the parking lot, blasting his music too loud, and having locks more luscious then Aphrodite herself. This summer, Alex worked on cell-free device design/manufacturing, microfluidic manufacturing, and he also chipped in on the wiki. |
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Arvind VeluvaliArvind is a senior at Brown pursuing a double degree in Chemistry and Economics. His hobbies include reading and playing the piano. This summer, Arvind worked on single-chain insulin design and production, creating the software model, optimizing cell-free systems in bacteria and yeast, and writing wiki content. |
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Dominique WuDunnDominique is a junior at Princeton pursuing a degree in Chemical and Biological Engineering. Dominique is also from Indiana, where she enjoys eating corn. In her free time, she enjoys swimming, watching The Good Doctor on Hulu, and talking about how cool Indiana is. This summer, Dominique worked on designing and cloning DNA constructs, expressing and purifying drugs and proteins used to test the microfluidic chips, and contributed to wiki content and design. |
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SophiaSophia is a junior at Brown pursuing a degree in Biochemistry & Molecular Biology. Yes, she can speak. No, she is not mad at you (yet). This summer she worked on lyophilization, cell-free media development, and on wiki content/design. |
Meet Our Advisors!
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Lynn RothschildLynn Rothschild is a senior research scientist at NASA Ames Research Center and Adjunct Professor of MCB at Brown University Brown Homepage where she focuses on astrobiology and synthetic biology. Her astrobiology research focuses on origin of life and how microbes have evolved in the context of the physical environment, both here and potentially elsewhere. Field sites range from Australia to Africa to the Andres, off Earth on balloons and in orbit. Rothschild has brought her expertise in extremophiles and evolutionary biology to the field of synthetic biology, demonstrating how synthetic biology can enhance NASA’s missions. She has been privileged to be the faculty advisor (“chief cat herder”) for various permutations of the Brown-Stanford and Stanford-Brown iGEM team since 2011, which has shown NASA and the world what can be done with synthetic biology in space. The award-winning projects have ranged from synthetic biology-enabled human Mars colonies (2011, 2013, 2018) to biodegradable drones (2014) and the use of synthetic biology for astrobiology (2012). Her lab also boasts the first iGEM project in space, the PowerCell payload on the DLR satellite EuCROPIS (2011, 2013). In her spare time, she looks for life in the universe, play bagpipes, and swim in order to keep up with the next generation. Lynn is a Fellow of the Linnean Society of London and the Explorers Club, and the 2015 winner of the Isaac Asimov Award and Horace Mann Medal. |
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Patrick BrennockPatrick Brennock received his M.S. in Bioengineering from Stanford University and recently started work in the Lynn Rothschild Lab as a USRA research contractor. His work has been split between the EuCROPIS Flight Mission and advising the iGEM 2019 team. His interests and specialities include protein engineering, metabolic engineering, and synthetic biology. --- |
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Amanda CarbajalAmanda Carbajal is a 2nd year PhD student in the Rothschild lab, through the Molecular, Cellular & Developmental Biology program at the University of California, Santa Cruz. Previously, she attended San Francisco State University for her Bachelor of Science in Biology: Zoology, and attended the University of California, San Francisco for a Master of Science in Physiology and Behavior. Though she has a background in neuroscience, she has fallen in love with studying the evolution and origins of life aspects of biology. As a science fiction lover, working at NASA is beyond a dream come true. She studies prion-like proteins, their unique qualities and evolution in relation to origins of life. Teaching and mentorship are also important to her, and she enjoyed meeting and offering additional assistance to the iGEM team over the summer. --- |
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Dr. Nils AvereschDr. Nils Averesch is a postdoctoral researcher at Stanford, and formerly the Synthetic Biology Task Lead with Universities Space Research Association as a Visiting Scientist at NASA Ames Research Center in Mountain View, California, USA. He received his PhD in 2016 from the University of Queensland in Brisbane, Australia, where he focused on Metabolic Engineering at the Centre for Microbial Electrosynthesis. He holds an engineer’s degree (Dipl. Ing.) in Biochemical Engineering, from the Technical University of Dortmund in Dortmund, Germany, having graduated in 2011. |
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Dr. Tomasz ZajkowskiDr. Tomasz Zajkowski is a Visiting Scientist at NASA Ames Research Center in Mountain View, California, USA. His research is focused on protein aggregation, amyloid, and prion formation that might be one of the oldest characteristics of proteins. He's also interested in astrobiology because it provides a liberating perspective on mainstream evolution as it highlights the connection between the physical environment, and the evolution of life on Earth and beyond. --- |
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Kate AdamalaKate Adamala is a biochemist building synthetic cells. Her research aims at understanding chemical principles of biology, using artificial cells to create new tools for bioengineering, drug development, and basic research. The interests of the lab span questions from the origin and earliest evolution of life, using synthetic biology to colonize space, to the future of biotechnology and medicine. Lab info protobiology.org. Kate is a co-founder of the synthetic cell therapeutics startup Synlife, and one of the leaders of the international Build-a-Cell community.. |
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Dr. David LoftusDr. Loftus is the Chief Medical Officer at NASA Amews. He has a broad background in biomedical sciences and clinical medicine, with a strong track record of developing medical technology, including implantable devices based on nanomaterials (NASA-Stanford Vision Chip); bio-inspired materials engineering and synthetic biology (NASA BioBrick, “Regolith Biocomposite”); carbon nanotube-based biosensors for cancer detection; implantable drug delivery system for deep space and terrestrial applications (NASA Biocapsule drug delivery system); and development of a handheld instrument for medical diagnostics in harsh environments (“NASA Tricorder”), among others. He has an extensive portfolio of invention disclosures, patent applications and issued patents. He is a fully trained hematologist-oncologist with expertise in leukemia and myelodysplastic syndrome, bleeding disorders, bone marrow disorders and hematopoietic stem cell disease. His expertise in leukemia is especially relevant to NASA because of the strong link between radiation exposure and leukemogenesis. Clinical interests include internal medicine, malignant and non-malignant hematology, oncology, clinical immunology, medical diagnostics, toxicology, clinical biomarkers (for personalized medicine and for validation of medical countermeasure performance). Scientific interests, outside the realm of clinical medicine, include physical chemistry, electrochemistry, biophysics, nanotechnology, cell biology and biochemistry. I have served on the faculty of Stanford University School of Medicine, where he maintains close ties to several clinical departments, and currently has teaching responsibilities (undergraduates, graduate students and post-docs) at Stanford University, in the School of Engineering. --- |
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Jessica SnyderEngineer, inventor, and explorer, Jessica Snyder studies how to use biology to grow -as much as build - useful objects in resource limited environments, such as during human missions to low Earth orbit and beyond. Dr. Snyder is currently a scientist contracted to NASA Ames Research Center and the Task Lead for the Synthetic Biology task of the NASA Academic Mission Services contract. She was a Guest Scientists with Quixote Expeditions to Antarctica's South Shetland Islands in February of 2019. Dr. Snyder was as an Adjunct Lecturer for the Santa Clara University College of Arts and Sciences. --- |