User:Alec Nielsen

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Introduction

Alec Nielsen

Hi, my name's Alec and I'm an undergrad at the University of Washington in Seattle. I'll be graduating in December 2009 from the departments of Bioengineering and Electrical Engineering, where I'm part of Herbert Sauro's and Eric Klavins' synthetic biology research groups. I recently finished an internship in Nitin Baliga's group at the Institute for Systems Biology.

Why synthetic biology? I think that Life is the coolest thing in our universe, and that humans have an innate desire to "make stuff". In synthetic biology, you make stuff with Life; you make Life. That's seriously cool, seriously powerful, and why I want to be a part of it. I don't think it's naive to envision a future where human ailments have been conquered, and where everyone lives a long life to its full potential. I want to help make this come true.

Other things about me: I live in the lovely Green Lake neighborhood of Seattle. I have a wonderful girlfriend named Kathy. I play guitar in a couple of bands. I'm enamored with the notion that the art, science, and technology of biology can be democratized and disseminated to the hobbyist, amateur, and curious individual. I love music, math, science, technology, and kissing (primates' best invention). Contact me if you'd like to.

Current Work

Researcher in Sauro Group

As a member of Herbert Sauro's group in the department of Bioengineering, I'm a DNA jockey that works with mRNA secondary structure and functional composition of ribosomal binding sites.

I'm also working with Deepak Chandran and Michal Galdzicki on a semantic description for biological parts, called Semantic SBOL (Synthetic Biology Open Language).

Researcher in Klavins & Nemhauser Groups

In an inter-lab collaboration between Eric Klavins' group (Electrical Engineering) and Jennifer Nemhauser's group (Biology), I'm mining auxin-responsive networks from plants to be used in engineered biological systems.

Previous Work

Intern in Baliga Group

In Nitin Baliga's Halobacterium group at the Institute for Systems Biology, I created a multiplexing chemostat capable of growing, measuring, and controlling the turbidity of several cell cultures. The goal was to develop a device capable of providing precise control over multiple cultures' cellular densities, because genetic regulatory responses depend intimately upon the growth phase of the culture.

Team Member for iGEM 2008

University of Washington's 2008 team for the International Genetically Engineered Machine competition designed and began to implement a system for trans-kingdom genetic transfer, the Vector-Jector. Plasmid conjugation from bacteria (E. coli) to yeast (S. cerevisiae) was performed under user-specified conditions; I engineered the shuttle plasmid for conjugation between the two organisms.

Education

2009, BS in Biological Engineering & Electrical Engineering, University of Washington, Seattle

Research interests

Auxin-responsive network topologies and dynamics
Ribosomal binding site measurements, mRNA secondary structure, translation rate standardization
Functional composition of standard biological parts
Semantic descriptions of biological parts and devices, DNA constructs, and samples.