I am an Assistant Professor at Boston University with expertise in the integration of engineered microorganisms with mechanical and electronic devices. I received my B.A. in Chemistry and Chemical Biology at Harvard University, where I developed a vinyl siloxane metathesis methodology under the supervision of Damian Young and Stuart Schreiber as a Herchel Smith Undergraduate Fellow. I received my Ph.D. in Chemistry at Columbia University where I developed synthetic biology-based microbial diagnostics under the supervision of Virginia Cornish as a National Science Foundation Fellow. I then did my postdoctoral work with Robert Langer at MIT where I developed formulations for microbial therapeutics and microbial-electronic monitoring devices as a Translational Research Institute for Space Health (TRISH) Fellow. I then was a Research Scientist with Giovanni Traverso at MIT, where I was the technical lead on a large DARPA program to develop ingestible bacterial-electronic to wirelessly treat food-borne illnesses and carry out first-in-human trials of the device.

I have extensive expertise spanning synthetic chemistry, molecular biology, materials science and biomedical device design. I also have experience moving biomedical devices from the lab into human clinical trials and collaborating across academic and industrial research.

I lead el Microbial Integration Group at Boston University. Our group develops miniature (0.01 – 1 cm3) portable devices that allow detection and/or production of biomolecules on demand. These devices use genetically engineered microorganisms that are integrated into and live inside microelectronics. For detection, the microbes sense a target molecule and transduce the signal to the electronics which then interface wirelessly or directly with personal devices. For production, the electronics dynamically actuate the microbes, inducing them to produce the target molecules on command. We have applied these microbial devices to develop ingestible electronics for the detection of inflammatory bowel disease and treatment of food-borne illnesses. Our current work expands on this early success by applying microbial devices to other human diseases, as well as agriculture, the environment and entertainment (AR/VR). In particular our work focuses on developing technology that works in low resource settings like those found in the field, at home and in exploration space travel.