As of 2020, Adam is a Scientist at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory and a Professor of Plant and Microbial Biology at UC Berkeley.

Adam was an REU scholar from Western University in the Integrated Science department, and worked with Kyle Sander on the CUBES project. Adam is creating a targeted mutagenesis library to screen for a microbe’s optimized pathway to bioplastic production (measured via HPLC and flow cytometry) for the creation of a high-throughput, sustainable space bioprocessor. On his free time, you can find Adam playing sports at the beach, exploring new places with friends and family, or at his makeshift barbershop giving haircuts.

Asa Garner studied Mechanical Engineering at Cal. He was a member of the CUBES project and is working under Aaron Berliner to study offworld nuclear engineering & develop methods to additively manufacture fissile material. He was also a lead for the Cal liquid rocket propulsion group ‘Space Enterprise at Berkeley’

Batu is an undergraduate in the Bioengineering Dept. Batu works with Dr. Vivek Mutalik. The project a systemic approach to enrich, isolate, characterize, and engineer novel ssRNA phages that support the agricultural, environmental, and possibly health strategies.

Cameran Casale is a second year undergraduate student at UC Berkeley studying bioengineering. She is currently working with Aaron Berliner on the CUBES project. Through her work at this lab, Cameran is interested in exploring different biological applications within space systems, such as the utilization of biologically derived materials in the development of nanoscale devices.

As of 2015, Chang is a Professor of Biomedical Engineering, Chemistry, and Molecular Biology & Biochemistry at UC Irvine.

As of 2007, Chris is a Professor of Bioengineering at UC Berkeley.

As of 2005, Chris is a Professor of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.

As of 2023 David is an Assistant Professor, Electrical and Biomedical Engineering at the University of Vermont. David was a postdoctoral researcher in the Arkin Laboratory at UC Berkeley. He received his Bachelor’s degree in Mechanical Engineering from the University of Vermont. He then earned his PhD in Biomedical Engineering from Boston University working in the lab of Daniel Segrè where he developed computational approaches to study the metabolic properties of microbes and microbial communities. In the Arkin lab, he focused on combining genome-scale metabolic modeling and machine learning to predict microbial phenotype from genotype. Outside of the lab, David enjoys spending time outdoors skiing (both downhill and cross-country) and hiking.

As of 2020, Denise is a Bioinformatics Scientist at UCSF.

Dexter worked with Dr. Bradley Biggs on the cloning and testing of genomic fragments into bacterial strains to test for the activity of unknown genes. This work is part of the broader ENIGMA goals of understanding the metagenomic data gathered at the site and improving our ability to move from metagenomic DNA to practical biological function of the microbial communities.

Divya was an undergraduate in the Bioengineering Dept. Divya worked with Dr. Hilzinger to screen Spirulina mutants as they are generated (gDNA preps, PCR, possible Illumina sequencing preps), and help develop better transformation methods for this organism.

Dr. Seunghyun Ryu is currently a Research Assistant Professor in The Department of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering at The University of Tennessee, Knoxville (UTK). She earned a BS degree in Chemical Engineering and Biotechnology at Ajou University in South Korea, a MA degree in Biochemistry at Korea University and Korea Institute of Science and Technology (KIST) in South Korea, and a PhD degree in Chemical Engineering from Texas Tech University with Prof. M Nazmul Karim. After her PhD, she worked as a postdoctoral scholar with Prof. Nils Kröger at Georgia Institute of Technology and later joined Trinh lab at UTK as a postdoctoral researcher and then a research scientist. Before returning to UTK as a Research Assistant Professor, Dr. Ryu worked as a research scientist at CJ America. Currently she is a visiting scholar in Prof. Arkin’s laboratory at The University of California, Berkeley. Her research interests are in the areas of protein engineering, metabolic engineering, and synthetic biology. Dr. Ryu has research expertise in protein and strain engineering, and has experience working with bacteria, yeast, diatom, and mammalian cell lines including non-model organisms. In addition to performing research, Dr. Ryu also serves as a project manager in Trinh lab for DOE and industry-funded projects.

Eric Alm is a Professor of Bioengineering at MIT.

Erzsabet is an undergraduate studying Bioengineering at UC Berkeley. She worked with Dr. Bradley Biggs. She constructed new plasmid variants to expand the genetic toolbox for gut bacteria with the overall goal of studying gene functions.

Farrah, undergraduate student studying Bioengineering and Electrical Engineering and Computer Science. She worked on the CUBES project with Dr. Aaron Berliner. Farrah worked on developing a model that simulates how metabolic rate of crew members fluctuate during space travel and extravehicular activity under varying conditions. She researched data for microbial biomanufacturing.

Gretchen, undergraduate in the Bioengineering Dept. She worked with Aaron Berliner on CUBES project specifically Modeling a Martian Biomanufactury

Han was an undergraduate in the Bioengineering Dept. He worked with Dr. Bernstein on mechanistic modeling and machine learning to monitor environmental contamination through genomics.

As of 2020, Hans is a Research Scientist at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory.

Haoming a student at Wuhan University studying Life Sciences and Finance. An exchange student at UC Berkeley and worked with Ruoshi Yuan to develop high throughput platforms to study C.necator in low nutrition conditions. Skilled in microfluidic chips design and fabrication and interested in understanding biological processes in economic terms.

Isra was an undergraduate at UC Berkeley in Environmental Sciences. She worked with Dr. Bradley Biggs on ENIGMA to conduct research focusing on pairwise microbial interactions under low pH and anaerobic conditions, with aims of applying this to broader biological modeling efforts.

As of 2020, Jared is a Professor of Molecular Biology at Princeton University.

Jasmine, an undergraduate bioengineering major at UC Berkeley. She worked with Dr. Bradley Biggs using genomic fragments to analyze the function of particular bacterial enzymes. This involves genetic recombination and cultivation of bacteria to study the observed behavior of unknown genes. This work is part of the broader ENIGMA goals of understanding the metagenomic data gathered at the site and improving our ability to move from metagenomic DNA to practical function of the microbial communities.

As of 2020, Joshua is a Professor of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science at UC Berkeley.

Joyleen an undergraduate in Aerospace Engineering Department (part of the inaugurating class) at UC Berkeley. She worked with Dr. Aaron Berliner a postdoc in the Arkin Lab on the development of Space Bioprocess Engineering metrics involving sustainability and supportability.

As of 2020, Julius is a Professor of Chemical and Biological Engineering at Northwestern University.

As of 2013, Keith is a Professor of Mathematics at Georgia Gwinnett College.

Kerem, undergraduate in the department of Bioengineering at the University of California, Berkeley. He worked with Drs. Arkin & Mutalik. The project a systemic approach to enrich, isolate, characterize, and engineer novel ssRNA phages that support the agricultural, environmental, and possibly health strategies.

Kim Pham undergraduate in the Bioengineering Dept. She worked with Dr. Jake Hilzinger to develop a pan-genome on the CUBES project

As of 2011, Leor is a Professor of Pharmaceutical Chemistry, Biochemistry and Biophysics at UCSF.

As of 2020, Matt is a Director at Calico Life Sciences.

Min is a second year undergraduate student at Berkeley studying bioengineering. She works with Dr. Biggs to characterize enzyme genotypes and functions from metagenomic data based on the iterative workflow that involves parallel sequencing and complementation assay. The project takes isolate level approaches that can be combined with field studies to fill in the gaps in understanding metabolism.

As of 2020, Ophelia is a Professor of Biochemistry at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.

As of 2015, Patrick is a Professor of Mathematics at the University of Massachusetts Amherst.

Paulina was an undergraduate senior in the Bioengineering Dept. She worked with Dr. Ruoshi Yuan on biomolecular nanotechnology using fluidics and chips. She has gone to work in industry.

Professor Trinh is currently a Ferguson Faculty Fellow in The Department of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering at The University of Tennessee Knoxville. He earned his PhD in chemical engineering from The University of Minnesota-Twin Cities under guidance of Prof. Friedrich Srienc. He then worked as a postdoctoral scholar with Profs. Douglas Clark and Harvey Blanch at The University of California, Berkeley. In Spring 2023, Prof. Trinh is a visiting scholar in Prof. Arkin’s laboratory at The University of California, Berkeley. Trinh’s research interests are in areas of systems and synthetic biology, metabolic engineering, biochemical engineering, microbial and viral physiology. His research aims to fundamentally understand complex cellular systems and develop novel experimental and computational tools to control these systems for biotechnological applications with 3 research thrusts. Thrust 1 is to develop a transformative technology, MODCELL (Modular Cell), to engineer modular (chassis) cells for rapid development of novel microbial biocatalysts for industrial biocatalysis. Thrust 2 is to develop a transformative ViPaRe (Virulent Pathogen Resistance) technology to effectively combat rapidly evolving and resistant pathogens. Thrust 3 is to understand mechanisms of cellular robustness against environmental and genetic perturbations and develop effective defensive tools to boost cellular robustness for applications from disease prevention to novel biocatalysis. Trinh serves as a PI of several single and collaborative funded projects including the NSF CAREER award for development of the MODCELL technology and the DARPA’s FYA and Director Fellowship for development of the ViPaRe technology. He is an active member of AIChE, SBE, ACS, SIMB, and IMES.
Google scholar: https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=1GZXQDEAAAAJ&hl=en&oi=ao

Rahil Shaik, chemical engineering undergraduate at UC Berkeley with an interest in studying manufacturing automation, battery materials, and semiconductor design. He worked with Dr. Kyle Sander to develop process models and 3D design modeling.

Riley, a graduate student in the UC Berkeley/UCSF Bioengineering program. She researched in the Arkin lab for her third lab rotation.  She was mentored by Yolanda Huang, a postdoc in the Arkin lab, to help develop barcoding and functional genomic libraries.

As of 2019, Sharon is a Professor of Biomedical Engineering at UC Davis.

Shuwen Hou was an undergraduate student at the University of Hong Kong (HKU) studying biochemistry. She attended UC Berkeley for an exchange study.
Shuwen worked with Dr. Fangchao Song to profile the microbial physiology in different conditions through droplet-based microfluidics as part of the ENIGMA project.

Skyler Chan undergraduate in the departments of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science at UC Berkeley. He wanted to become an astronaut since he was 3. In high school, he learned how to fly gliders, and was involved in various student-led space organizations. One of his goals is to make humanity an interplanetary species within our lifetime, and he joined CUBES to advance this mission. Currently, he builds in the Systems Design and Integration Division of CUBES. He is interested in exploring sustainable design on Mars, such as, how to build the first self-sufficient Martian cities. To Skyler, the idea that the choices we make designing the first Martian habitats today will have an impact on the future of humanity never gets old. In his free time, he can be found flying drones, PR-ing at the gym, and filming videos with friends.

Sophia is a sophomore at UC Berkeley studying Molecular & Cellular Biology and Economics. She was initially drawn to CUBES because of their work with In-situ Resource Utilization and is interested in studying different forms of life in strenuous environments. In her free time she enjoys surfing, playing soccer and reading novels.

Spencer Zezulka undergrad at UC Berkeley in the departments of MCB and astrophysics. He joined CUBES in October 2021 and worked with Aaron Berliner to computationally model compact object accretion disks in search of a potentially habitable region. Outside of his own aforementioned project, he assisted teammates at CUBES in data visualization and mathematical modeling.

As of 2020, Stefano is a Senior Scientist at Synomics.

As of 2020, Steve is a Professor of Bioinformatics at the University of Washington.

Xiaohan Zhu a graduate student in the UC Berkeley Biophysics program. She rotated in the Arkin lab researching microbial community assembly. She was mentored by Dr. Bradley Bigg during her rotation.

As of 2019, Gabriela is a Research Assistant at The Smith-Kettlewell Eye Research Institute.

As of 2021, Ben is a Postdoctoral Fellow in the Doudna Lab at the University of California Berkeley.

As of 2020, Ashley is a Scientist at Roche.

Brooklyn Brace was a fourth year undergraduate student at UC Berkeley studying Molecular and Cell Biology. She has an interest in microbiology and genomics and how they apply to bioengineering. Brooklyn joined the Arkin Lab in 2019, and she was working on the CUBES project in the MMFD division investigating genes important for nitrogen fixation. Previously, Brooklyn worked in a synthetic biology lab at Columbia University working on the development of a multiplexed drug screening platform for small molecule inhibitors of viral proteases.

As of 2020, Sean is a Senior Scientist at 64x Bio.

Heloise Carion was a fourth year Bioengineering undergraduate student at UC Berkeley with a concentration in synthetic and computational biology. Her interests include genetics, systems biology, and computation. In 2018, she joined the Arkin Laboratory, and has helped develop technology for high-throughput characterization of phage genes.

Dylan Chivian was a Research Scientist at LBL, interested in discovering the rules for assembly, stability, and dynamics of functional cohorts within microbiomes.

As of 2017, Sam is a Postdoctoral Fellow at Sandia National Laboratory.

As of 2019, Bing is a Software Engineer at LinkedIn.

As of 2019, Rob  is an Engineer at Pacific Northwest National Laboratory.

As of 2020, Yasha is a PhD student at Harvard Medical School.

As of 2020, Garth is a PhD student at Northwestern University.

As of 2021, Skyler is a PhD Student at the University of British Columbia.

Omree Gal-Oz was a software developer with the Arkin Laboratory at UC Berkeley/ LBNL. Throughout college he was primarily interested in mathematics and music, and found an intersection between them in software. Afterwards he tutored high-schoolers in math and software and taught piano privately before moving to Berkeley to work at the California Jazz Conservatory. He gained experience in software-oriented companies by writing software for Magisto and working on product development with Blue Cedar. He is currently working on integrating biology software into KBase and creating in-browser visual displays. Besides writing software, he still enjoys playing and producing music and can occasionally be found playing music in the wilderness.

As of 2017, Gina is a Principal Laboratory Support Technologist at Sandia National Laboratories.

Drew Hendrickson was a researcher with the Arkin Lab at LBNL. He graduated from UC Berkeley in 2019 with his B.S. in Chemical Biology and Microbial Biology with a focus in environmental and ecological microbiology. Previously, Drew worked in bioremediation to elucidate the microbial transformations of hydrocarbon contaminants by using advanced mass spectrometry and sequencing techniques. He is interested in systems biology, data science, and “-omics” to understand our microbial world. Since joining the ENIGMA team, he employs improved sequencing techniques to study novel microbes from diverse environments. Outside of the lab, he enjoys dance, LGBTQ advocacy, and hiking across the California landscape.

Luis was a 4th year undergraduate and aspiring graduate student majoring in Molecular and Cell Biology. He joined the Arkin Lab in the summer of 2019 under the mentorship of Dr. Carim, with whom he studied phage-tail like bacteriocins, also known as tailocins. His first project encompassed designing vectors for the construction of recombinant tailocin proteins in order to investigate genetic determinants of killing specificity. He helped conduct genome-wide fitness assays to elucidate genetic factors of bacterial resistance to tailocins in non-canonical organisms such as Pseudomonas fluorescens and Pseudomonas protegens. When not in the lab, you can catch him with a Nikon taking photos around the city, riding his bike along the marina, playing soccer at the park, or on a hiking trail. Outside of research, Luis is passionate about providing guidance, support, and information to aspiring and current students about the college application process and the college life, especially as it pertains to the experience of first-generation, low-income, undocumented/DACAmented, and LatinX students in higher education. To this end, he actively devotes his time to the Let’s Talk Universi-Tea Podcast – a project created alongside a group of his childhood friends and which is soon to be released.

Avery was a fourth year undergraduate student at UC Berkeley, currently working towards a double major in Economics and Molecular and Cell Biology with an emphasis in developmental genetics. She is interested in how the intersection of her two academic disciplines come together to further the research behind space exploration. In CUBES, Avery was working towards optimizing an elemental balance in a martian biomanufacturing system through the use of techno economic analysis. Outside of CUBES, Avery works at a biopharma consultancy and hopes to move into biotech in the future.

Davian was an undergraduate student interested in bioengineering and EECS. He previously worked on extracellular contractile injection systems, and now investigates phages in the gut microbiome and makes vector art for synthetic biology. Davian also a member of CUBES, where he developed the interface for space resource modeling software.

As of 2018, Ryan is a MD/PhD Candidate – Medical Scientist Training Program at the School of Medicine and Jacob School of Engineering at UC San Diego.

Yolanda is currently assistant professor at SUNY Buffalo. She was a postdoc in the Arkin lab and a Life Sciences Research Foundation (LSRF) fellow sponsored by Astellas Pharmaceuticals. She received her Bachelor’s from McGill University in Biochemistry. She completed her PhD in Chemical Biology with Emily Balskus at Harvard University where she characterized a new glycyl radical enzyme responsible for 4-hydroxyproline metabolism that is prevalent among gut anaerobes. In the Arkin lab, she worked to identify phage factors that influence bacterial physiology through multiple approaches – computational tools, data mining, and functional genomics.

As of 2021, Nick is a Senior Scientist at Guide Therapeutics.

William Krinsman was a PhD student from the Interdepartmental Group in Biostatistics at UC Berkeley. He worked in the Arkin Laboratory at LBNL as a developer for KBase and data analyst for ENIGMA. William’s research focused on developing novel computational methods for the statistical analysis of biological datasets. William majored in mathematics at Northwestern University, during which time William also studied at the universities TUM and LMU in the German city of Munich. Before moving to Berkeley, William was a Fulbright scholar for one year in the German capital Berlin. Afterwards, and prior to joining the Arkin Laboratory, William previously worked at LBNL’s supercomputing center NERSC and Computational Research Division (CRD), developing software to help scientists fully and easily access NERSC’s computing resources via interactive computing platforms from the open-source Jupyter project. William is fluent in German, as well as conversational in Russian and Spanish, and grew up in a household with two dogs and five cats.

Anderson Lee was a third-year undergraduate student at UC Berkeley studying Bioengineering with a focus on Synthetic and Computational Biology. He was optimizing the production of biopharmaceuticals to be utilized during space travel. In previous companies, he has developed an ELISA procedure to determine the concentration of a tumor-detecting drug in biological samples and enhanced a mobile, quick diagnostic machine that scans for viruses. Previous to the Arkin Lab, he worked in Mohammed Mofrad’s Cell and Biomechanics Laboratory at UC Berkeley where he used neural networks with backpropagation to predict a virus’ host based on the genome of the virus. In the future, he sees himself using synthetic biology to conquer problems inherent to the nature of space travel. He believes that technology already present in nature and perfected with evolution can be the key to send humans to other planets.

Isaac Lipsky an undergraduate student at UC Berkeley studying environmental science and public policy. In concert with Aaron Berliner, he worked on developing cost-benefit metrics for Mars surface operations. His interests include planetary science and the tantalizing prospect of Martian terraforming.

As of 2020, Matt is a Senior Scientist at Syngenta.

As of 2020, Dylan is a PhD Student at MIT.

As of 2020, Molly is a Program Manager at Convoy, Inc.

As of 2019, Amor is a Professor at the University of Florida.

As of 2020, Mahek is a Manager at JLL Technologies.

Madeline graduated from UC Berkeley in 2020 with a degree in Molecular Environmental Biology. She began her research career as a field biologist where she quickly discovered her interest in microbial communities within soil. In 2016, she traveled to Antarctica as part of an NSF-funded expedition. In 2018, she worked for the US Geological Survey studying biological soil crusts in Moab, Utah, and she completed a research project examining benthic protozoa on the island of Mo’orea, French Polynesia. During the rest of her time as an undergraduate student she studied soil microbial ecology with the Firestone lab at UC Berkeley and completed an honors thesis focused on linking root exudate metabolites with fungal community composition in the rhizosphere. As a research associate in the Arkin lab, Madeline investigates mechanisms behind phage-host interactions as part of a COVID-19 related project. She plans to pursue a PhD in systems and quantitative biology.

Dr. Mutalik is a research scientist at Environmental Genomics and Systems Biology Division, Functional genomics Department, and Biological Systems and Engineering Division, Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, Berkeley, CA, USA. Dr. Mutalik works in the area of synthetic biology and functional genomics of diverse microbes and phages. Dr. Mutalik is currently working towards establishing Berkeley Phage Foundry, a unified facility for engineering phages and phage-like particles for diverse applications within Innovative Genomics Institute, Berkeley. Previously, Dr. Mutalik lead the BIOFAB project, the world’s first biological design-build facility in Emeryville, CA, funded by NSF. Dr. Mutalik received his PhD in Chemical engineering from the Indian Institute of Technology Bombay, India and was a Postdoctoral Fellow in Prof Carol Gross at University of California, San Francisco. Dr. Mutalik has three years of experience in the Biotechnology Industry in handling more than hundred kiloliter industrial fermentation units, bulk drug manufacturing and resource management. He has recently cofounded Felix Biotechnology, focused on accelerating the deployment of novel biotherapeutics targeting urgent microbial challenges in human health and beyond.

Nick Nolan was a Bioengineering and EECS sophomore undergraduate student in the Arkin Laboratory at UC Berkeley; his research topics were in viral engineering and control theory, though is always willing to delve into other topics of interest. As much as science is important to him, science education is equally so–thus he has organized the 2019 BioEHSC™, a Bioengineering High School Competition, the largest high school-specific competition of its kind in the world, as Junior Chair, and looks forward to serving as Senior Chair in the competition’s next annual iteration.

As of 2020, Eugene is a Consultant at Hayden Consulting Group.

As of 2017, Dominic is a Scientist at Amyris.

Denish is currently a project scientist in the Mutalik Lab. He was a postdoctoral scholar in the Arkin Laboratory at UC Berkeley. He completed his PhD from Texas A&M University focusing on phage research. He is applying CRISPR and Dubseq technologies to study how genes affect fitness in context of phage infection.

Alejandro Ramirez was a Bioengineering Research Associate in the Arkin Laboratory at LBNL. He studied bioengineering, concentrating in synthetic biology and systems biology, and metabolic engineering at the University of California, Berkeley. In 2019 he interned at Amyris, Inc. as a fermentation operations associate for tanks sized 250 mL to 2.0 L before starting full-time at Endless West as a production associate in the creation of beverages and food from component chemicals. As his passion was still in synthetic biology, Alejandro returned to work for the Arkin Lab in 2020 joining the ENIGMA project under the supervision of Vivek Mutalik. His interests in science are in sustainable engineering, biological interactions, and genetic tools used in directed-evolution.

As of 2019, Harneet is a Scientist at Nome Biotechnologies.

As of 2020, Thomas is at the Joint BioEnergy Institute.

As of 2019, Judy is an Investment Partner at Andreessen Horowitz.

As of 2017, François is a PhD Student at the University of Nottingham.

Will Sharpless was an undergraduate researcher in the Arkin lab for 2 years. He works on the CUBES mission to design novel microbial communities for the rhizosphere of rice. Will is a math/bio double major at Cal and focuses on the dynamics and stability of biological systems, and the application of mathematics for nonlinear systems and networks to bioengineering. In the lab, Will works under the mentorship of postdoctoral researchers Kyle Sander and Fangchao Song.

Fengzhe Shi was an undergraduate at Beijing Jiaotong University and now an exchange student at UC Berkeley studying computer science. He joined Mesbah Lab during this period and took part in the CUBES project. In CUBES, Fengzhe mainly works on modeling deep learning based surrogate models in dynamic systems. Previously, he worked in a computer science lab at Peking University on an information retrieval and recommender system.

As of 2020, Shunsuke is at the Research Institute for Bioscience Products and Fine Chemicals, Kawasaki, Japan,

As of 2020, Tuesday is a Scientist at GALT.

Fangchao Song is a scientist at LLNL. He was a postdoctoral fellow in Arkin Lab at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory. Fangchao worked on droplet-based high throughput method to reveal bacterial interactions in complex microbial community and profile the microbial physiology in different nutrients and environments, under the project of Ecosystems and Networks Integrated with Genes and Molecular Assemblies (ENIGMA). Before joining the lab, Fangchao was a graduate student working on mathematical modeling of polymerization and biodegradable polymer manufacturing. In 2010, he started a new journey in the microbiology world during his Ph.D research on microbial biofilms and their antibiotic resistance. Since then, he is fascinated by the complexity and orderliness of microbiome, and enthusiastic about designing new method by combining experiments and modeling to better understand the function and dynamics of microbiome. Fangchao obtained his B.S. from Shandong University in 2003, M.S. from Zhejiang University in 2010, and Ph.D. from Syracuse University in 2016, all in Chemical Engineering.

As of 2019, Niranjan is a Senior Computational Biologist and Tech Lead at 10X Genomics.

As of 2019, Mitch is a Postdoctoral Scholar in the Shih Lab at UC Davis.

Alex is a molecular fungal pathologist with expertise in biochemical, molecular and genome analysis of fungi. After obtaining a diploma in biology at TU Kaiserslautern (Germany), Alex completed his PhD degree at the Johannes Gutenberg University Mainz (JGU) / IBWF in Kaiserslautern at Eckhard Thines Lab, studying infection-related development of Zymoseptoria tritici. His focus of research lies in identification and functional characterization of pathogenicity associated factors and genetic determinants of economically important plant fungal pathogens using genomics, transcriptomics, bioinformatics and high throughput mutagenesis approaches. His research retains a particular emphasis on the regulation and mechanisms of dimorphic switch in Z. tritici. As part of his postdoctoral research stay at UC Berkeley (Adam Arkin Lab), he  worked on a BASF-funded project and was responsible for the establishment of a screening system based on a functional genomics approach using genome-wide fitness profiling of barcoded mutant library of Rhodosporidum toruloides to elucidate MoA of novel antifungal compounds.

Ruoshi Yuan was a postdoc researcher in the Arkin lab at UC Berkeley/LBNL. He obtained his PhD in 2016 at Shanghai Jiao Tong University, China, supervised by Dr. Ping Ao. Then he did postdoctoral research at Harvard Medical School with Dr. Johan Paulsson. Ruoshi’s research interests include stochastic and nonlinear dynamics, mathematical modeling of biological phenomena, microbial interactions, complex diseases, and synthetic biology. Besides theory, he also works on high-throughput microfluidic experiments to obtain single cell time series data.