From 2007.igem.org

Our fearless leader!

No, you'll never see me without a bike helmet:

I'm an assistant professor of Biomedical Engineering (cross-appointed in Microbiology and Physics), and this is my second year doing IGEM. I continue to hope for incredible advances in synthetic biology, like rollerblade boots that don't hurt (made of E. coli?) or household pets expressing GFP!

But right now we're mostly stuck trying to get Eco, Xba, Spe, and Pst to obey us. Synthetic biology is way outside my field--most of what I do involves quantum dots and other types of fluorescent labeling. In layman's terms, I turn things green. Someday I hope to make the connection between my day job and IGEM--the first step might be a quantum dot-based AI biosensor, stay turned!

I also look for bacteria on MARS, which is the McGill Arctic Research Station at 80 degrees north latitude. Someday we might actually send an instrument to the Red Planet, if only to turn it green. Yes, it's cold up there. Always. Here's a picture of me in July.