About
I do my best work where the job is solving problems.
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.
Experience
Where the work happened.
- 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.
Cell Line Engineering (CRISPR & Lentivirus)
Design-to-bank pipelines for 40+ pooled and clonal lines; RNP-based CRISPR KO/KI and lentiviral overexpression systems, including a co-invented recombinase-mediated cassette exchange (RMCE) platform.
Note: planning a web tool to auto-generate protocols for this workflow.
Cell Culture
iPSC, primary T-cell, and immortalized lines (HEK293, Expi293, HepG2, Jurkat, SH-SY5Y) across suspension and adherent formats.
AAV Capsid Production & Screening
Design, cloning, and production of novel AAV capsid variants; built small-scale harvesting and screening pipelines scaling from 12 to 96-well throughput.
Cell-Based Assay Design
Incucyte- and flow-verified functional assays used to screen candidates before advancing to in vivo studies.
Lab Automation
Hamilton Vantage, Bio-MEK, Agilent Bravo, KingFisher; custom 3D-printed hardware to convert manual workflows into high-throughput ones.
Analytical Assays
ddPCR/qPCR, ELISA, Western blot/silver stain, flow cytometry (FACS/sorting), Tapestation, NGS library prep.
3D Printing Portfolio
Designing the tool that doesn't exist yet.
Custom lab hardware, designed in Fusion 360 and printed on FDM machines.
Current & Other Work
What I'm doing right now, and outside the lab.
- Managing projects and operations for a classic car restoration and repair shop.
- 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