BE Board:Sean Clarke

For current website see begradboard.mit.edu

Sean Clarke Year: 2005 Track: Bioengineering Lab: Eric Alm

Contact Information Email: saclarke Phone: 301-ALP-5KNEE Office address: cube: 48-216 lab: 48-324 (Parsons Labs)

General Information Bio Sean Clarke seanclarke at mit NE47-307 linkedin.com/in/seanaidanclarke I was a postdoc and earned my Ph.D. in the Alm lab in Biological Engineering at MIT. Our focus is on microbial ecology, microbiomes, and the evolution of microbial genomes. My work has been on experimental evolution, genomic adaptation and stress tolerance in Vibrio splendidus. In short, I'm a personal trainer for bacteria. Past life and credentials My background is in mechanical engineering and design, but not of things quite as small as bacteria. B.S.M.E., University of Texas at Austin, biomedical technical area B.A., University of Texas at Austin, Plan II Liberal Arts Honors Program Fulbright grant, Milan, Italy, independent study of industrial and engineering design methods, and classes in biomaterials at the Politecnico di Milano Other research interests Food microbiology Microbiomes of the built environment How bacteria move and live in cities Engineering microbial stress tolerance Relating stress tolerance to genetic loci Resequencing evolved microbes Scaling of engineered biology to industrial purposes Design and use of replicating biological machines Technologies/vocabularies to make biological engineering easier Ethics and philosophy of science instruction for scientists/engineers Biomimicry, bioscaffolds for material processing Recycling/"cradle to cradle" design of biological systems Usability of biological design software and equipment Biomineralization Classes BE.400 BE.410 BE.420 BE.430 5.95 Teaching College-Level Science and Engineering 7.81 Systems Biology Excellent class, Alex van Oudenaarden 18.085 Applied Math for Engineers with the indefatigable Gil Strang, who might have taught your parents and is still revising his book daily. 7.56 Graduate Cell Biology, with an emphasis on yeast, Profs. Stephen Bell and Frank Solomon 1.89 Environmental Microbiology with Martin Polz OEB.192 Microbial Evolution with Chris Marx, a great subject that is not taught enough directed evolution seminar Past Projects My first project at MIT was during the summer of 2005 when I tried the Orthogonal cloning of clpXP from E. coli into yeast. I was more successful at learning molecular biology techniques by making mistakes than at cloning into yeast. This work is continuing in someone else's more capable hands. Notes