Laminae
delivering on biocomputing's true promise. (very) early stage.
bioeng. @ umd · synbio · protein engineering · biocomputing
broadly, i'm interested in decoding the rules governing self-assembly of multicellular structures (organs & organisms), and using those rules to build de novo systems for human health, augmentation, and advancement. these could be improved organs, self-assembling neural circuits, intelligent microbots, or something else entirely.
however, i am a serial builder, and my interests are highly varied from coffee to cervical cancer ;) take a look below!
delivering on biocomputing's true promise. (very) early stage.
free coffee + community every friday at UMD. 1,000+ members, $30K/yr, major collabs, 250–500 students/event. NPO coming soon :)
one of 3 researchers pioneering light-based DNA synthesis in cells ("programming" cells using light). work spans computational enzyme design, structural biology, continuous evolution, and many, many assay designs. research generously funded by NYU Langone and DARPA.
designed and screened 10⁹-candidate phage display libraries. built protein docking/scoring pipelines, characterized anti-idiotype antibodies, and initiated the company's first synbio protein engineering campaign. poster here.
led development of toehold riboswitches for miRNA-based cervical dysplasia detection. validated in vivo and cell-free. led human practices work. assisted on computational work and riboswitch design tool. gold medal, Paris World Expo of Synthetic Biology 2024. best poster, UMD/JHU BMES 2024.
project wiki here (contains all results); poster here.
engineered a low-cost cell-free system expressing custom biosensors and cytotoxic proteins. mentored 20+ students; served on FIRE student leadership council. posters here and here.
bringing the startup-spawning swag of software hackathons to biotech. reach out if interested in helping out.
proposed replacing the proteolytic switch in hevin (a bifunctional protein that both assembles & eliminates thalamocortical synapses) with a photonic one.
designed phocl2f-hevin photocleavable construct. used alphafold & computational analysis to select sites for affinity maturation of the tlr4-binding fragment via yeast display. first concept for optogenetic control of the hevin-mediated developmental pruning pathway.
proposal document here; presentation here.
mentoring team 23396 (2026 TN state inspire award winners) & team 7149 (too many awards to list).