About
Cody McDonald
Scientist.
I'm a cell and molecular biologist with 8+ years across AAV/lentiviral vector engineering, CRISPR cell line engineering, and cell & gene therapy process development at Neurocrine, Fate Therapeutics, Sana Biotechnology, Generation Bio, and Vertex. But the common thread isn't any one technique, it's the environment: I do best where the job is creatively solving whatever's actually in front of you, whether that's infrastructure, lab buildout, automation, or the science itself. When the tool I needed didn't exist, I designed and 3D-printed it. When a process didn't scale, I rebuilt it. Moving between hands-on bench work, hardware, and systems-level problem solving is the range I bring to a team.
I do my best work where the job is solving problems.
Experience
- Working directly with the CEO to design and prototype medical devices for the European market, translating product vision into concrete design and engineering requirements.
- CAD design and hands-on prototyping in Fusion 360, iterating device geometry across multiple revisions.
- Testing and validating prototypes against design requirements, feeding results back into the next iteration.
- Led design, cloning, and viral production of novel AAV capsid variants targeting blood-brain barrier penetrance. Generated internally developed capsids demonstrating CNS expression in animal models for the first time in company history.
- Designed and built a small-scale AAV harvesting pipeline to screen capsid variants at 96-well scale, advancing top candidates to in vivo studies via flow-verified Incucyte imaging.
- Designed (DOE), executed, and analyzed two multi-month mouse biodistribution studies; processed liver/brain tissue through DNA/RNA extraction and NGS analysis via a Python/Pandas pipeline.
- Designed and 3D-printed a custom 96-well magnetic purification station, scaling weekly throughput from 12 to 96 variants; engineered custom centrifuge adapters and fixtures to eliminate needle-stick hazards during iodixanol gradient purification.
- Led a transfection optimization project achieving a 100% improvement in AAV particle fullness and functional titer; authored SOPs and transferred the process to the scale-up team.
- Managed Expi293 suspension and adherent neuronal (SH-SY5Y) cell line operations while supervising junior staff and a summer intern.
- Recruited for a senior technical role driving cell line engineering strategy for iPSC-derived T-cell (CAR-T) therapies; position eliminated in a 70% company-wide layoff shortly after onboarding.
- Used the transition period to build out CAD and hardware prototyping skills, later deployed at Neurocrine.
- Built a design-to-bank cell line engineering pipeline for ~40 pooled and clonal lines used in antibody screening assays for CAR-T therapeutics.
- Created and optimized a lentiviral overexpression pipeline alongside an RNP-based CRISPR knockout pipeline, plus siRNA/miRNA knockdown strategies for transient assays.
- Co-invented a recombinase-mediated cassette exchange (RMCE) platform for rapid, library-scale clonal line generation with novel protein expression.
- Managed 3–4 color FACS workflows for pooled/clonal isolation and CD4/CD8+ characterization; maintained full QC/banking traceability in Benchling.
- Built an LNP-transfection and purification pipeline for SF9 insect cells producing the company's proprietary closed-ended DNA (ceDNA) product.
- Delivered a 100% week-over-week throughput improvement through process redesign during the company's early-stage buildout.
- Four-rotation internship program spanning multiple therapeutic areas: CRISPR knockout of CFTR in human lung cells at >90% efficiency, HTS small-molecule screening automation, and a custom western blot assay that identified a small molecule's binding site.
Skills
What I actually use day to day.
Tools & Software
Day-to-day software across CAD, slicing, coding, and data analysis.
3D Printing Portfolio
Designing the tool that doesn't exist yet.
Custom lab hardware, designed in Fusion 360 and printed on FDM machines.
Builds
Voron 2.4: CoreXY printer builds.
Three Voron 2.4s: the first sourced and built entirely from scratch, two more from kits, each running Klipper on a Raspberry Pi with custom automation layered on top.
What a Voron 2.4 is and how it works (general overview, not my own build footage).
Mechanical Build
Built three Voron 2.4 CoreXY printers. The first was fully self-sourced: every printed part, extrusion, and hardware component selected individually and assembled, wired, and squared up from the ground up. The next two were built from kits, refining assembly, cable management, and calibration with each iteration.
Firmware & Automation
Each printer runs Klipper on a Raspberry Pi, extended past the stock config: custom G-code macros for movement sequencing and automated bed probing/mesh calibration, live camera integration for remote print monitoring, and automated notifications on print status, the same build-the-tool-you-need approach used in the lab and in other software projects.
Current & Other Work
What I'm doing right now, and outside the lab.
- Authored and proposed a phased facilities/operations plan for a 10,000 sq ft, ~10-area compound (workshop, paint bay, lounge, apartment, outdoor space), scoping problems around single-point-of-failure workflow, missing cost/job tracking, and underused space.
- Delivered Phase 1 low-cost wins: full electrical mapping, room naming/signage, a printed floor plan, and basic safety setup (eyewash, PPE, fire suppression, clear walkways), removing the owner as the bottleneck for day-to-day questions.
- Designed and built the shop's public website and a Nextcloud-based inventory/tracking system. View site →
- Freelance CAD design and 3D printing services: custom parts, prototypes, and fixtures.
- Volunteering at the Fleet Science Center.
- Certification in progress; not yet active.
Software & Infrastructure
Projects built the same way I build lab hardware, because the tool I wanted didn't exist yet.
EMT Field Charting App
A privacy-conscious, offline-first PWA for personal EMT charting, built as an installable web app with background sync, PDF export, and automatic PII redaction after 24 hours.
Self-Hosted Home Infrastructure
Design and operation of a multi-host self-hosted stack: media, automation, and web apps running across Proxmox hosts, Docker, and reverse-proxied services.
Fitness & Nutrition Tracker
A personal fitness tracking web app with automatic food-photo lookup, TDEE calculation, and Apple Health sync via Shortcuts automation.
Education