Professor

Timothy Lu

RLE Biography

Timothy Lu is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science and an Associate Member of the Broad Institute of MIT and Harvard. Tim received his undergraduate and M.Eng. degrees from MIT in Electrical Engineering and Computer Science. He obtained an M.D. from Harvard Medical School and Ph.D. from the Harvard-MIT Health Sciences and Technology Medical Engineering and Medical Physics Program. Tim has won the Lemelson-MIT Student Prize, Grand Prize in the National Inventor Hall of Fame's Collegiate Inventors Competition, and the Leon Reznick Memorial Prize for "outstanding performance in research" from Harvard Medical School. He has also been selected as a Kavli Fellow by the National Academy of Sciences and a Siebel Scholar. Outside of the lab, Tim enjoys playing volleyball and tennis.

Staff Researcher

Aaron Glieberman

Aaron is a researcher in the Lu lab, where he is also responsible for facilitating the logistics of lab operation.  He earned both an Sc.B. and an Sc.M. in Biomedical Engineering from Brown University.  During his studies there, he participated in the iGEM competition, where his captivation with synthetic biology expanded beyond measure.  The culmination of his work at Brown resulted in the design of a genetic limiter circuit that applies a unique conditional regulation scheme to a gene of interest.  Aaron’s current research centers on understanding the mechanisms of amyloid formation in yeast and the ways in which this process might be harnessed for computational and therapeutic goals.  In the rare occurrence that Aaron is not in lab, he may be found honing his abilities as an outdoorsman, trekking the higher altitudes of New England.  He also engages in long-distance running and teaches CPR classes.

Postdoctoral Fellows

Oliver Purcell

Oliver received a BSc. in Molecular Biology and MSc. in Bioinformatics from the University of Manchester, and an MRes and PhD in Complexity Science from the University of Bristol. He is currently a postdoctoral associate in the Lu lab and is interested in building synthetic gene networks with novel properties, and ultimately creating fully synthetic living systems. Outside of the lab he likes to snowboard and Scuba dive. 

Urartu Ozgur Safak Seker

Urartu Seker received his PhD from Istanbul Technical University in Molecular Biology-Genetics and Biotechnology in December 2009. During his PhD studies he was also a graduate research assistant and visiting graduate student at the University of Washington Genetically Engineered Materials Science and Engineering Center between 2004-2007. After PhD, he worked as a postdoctoral fellow in Bilkent University National Nanotechnology Research Center in Ankara, Turkey until June 2010. He has also worked as a Postdoctoral Fellow in Nanyang Technological University Electrical Engineering and Applied Physics Departments in Singapore in 2011 with Prof. H. Volkan Demir. Currently he is working as a Postdoctoral research associate in MIT Synthetic Biology Center with Prof. Timothy K. Lu. His research interest covers designing and implementing protein based nano-assemblies by employing tools of molecular biology and biochemistry towards biomedical-biotechnological applications.

Chao Zhong

Chao joined the synthetic biology group in Feb 2012. Prior to MIT, he had been working as a postdoc in Professor Rolandi group in materials science at University of Washington, Seattle since summer 2009. Earlier than that, He earned his Ph.D. in BME from Cornell University in Aug 2009. His research interests include bioinspired materials/devices, biomineralization and synthetic biology as a novel toolbox for nanobiomaterials synthesis. He has published work in several prestigious journals like Nature Communications and Advanced Materials et al. His recent work on nanobioprotonic transistor was covered by many media reports including Materials Research Society (MRS), Discovery News, New York Times, MIT Tech Review and IEEE Spectrum. In Lu’s lab, he is going to use synthetic biology as a useful engineering discipline to explore novel routes towards bio-inspired nanomaterials synthesis and nanodevices design. Outside the lab, chao likes travelling, tennis, music and watching movies. Chao can be reached by: zhongc@mit.edu, and more information about him can be found in his personal website.

Piro Siuti

Piro received his PhD from University of Tennessee/Oak Ridge National Laboratory where he worked on Nano-enabled synthetic biology: A cell mimic based sensing platform for exploiting biochemical networks. Piro joined the synthetic biology group in October 2011 and is interested in using single invertase memory modules for building memory and recording events during the lifetime of the cell.

Bijan Zakeri

Bijan is a post-doctoral associate in the Synthetic Biology Group at MIT. He received his HBSc in Biochemistry from McMaster University, where he conducted research in Gene Therapy and developed a new class of oncolytic viruses. Then he earned his MSc in Chemical Biology at McMaster University, where he developed next-generation semi-synthetic antibiotics. Subsequently, he received his PhD in Biochemistry at the University of Oxford as a prestigious Clarendon Scholar and St. Peter's College Born Scholar. While in Oxford, Bijan specialized in bionanotechnology and invented a versatile new class of peptide tags which bind their target via a spontaneous and irreversible covalent bond (the Isopeptag and SpyTag peptide tagging systems). These 'Molecular Super-Glues' were inspired by flesh-eating bacteria and have received much media attention. Bijan's scientific interests are to use interdisciplinary approaches to develop innovative technologies and therapeutics. For any inquiries and collaborations, Bijan can be contacted at: zakeri@mit.edu.

Graduate Students

Allen Chen

Allen graduated with an A.B. in Chemistry and Physics from Harvard and received an M.Phil. in Chemistry from Cambridge. Currently, Allen is an M.D.-Ph.D. student in the Harvard-MIT Health Sciences and Technology Program, and is interested in engineering synthetic biology systems with potential biomedical applications. His non-work pursuits include traveling, basketball, and attempting to do improv comedy.

Allen is an M.D.-Ph.D. student at Harvard Medical School. He is a member of the Harvard Biophysics Graduate Department with affiliation to the Harvard-MIT Health Sciences and Technology Medical Engineering and Medical Physics Program. He received his A.B. and A.M. in Chemistry summa cum laude from Harvard College in 2009 and conducted research in high-throughput screening for Histone Deacetylase modulators. Allen's research interests lie in biomedical applications and technology development. He currently receives support from the NIH Medical Scientist Training Program and the Gates Foundation. Allen hails from Los Angeles and, outside of lab, he enjoys eating, cooking, golf, and eating some more.

Fahim Farzadfard

Fahim is a PhD candidate in Microbiology Program at MIT. He earned his Bachelor and MSc degrees in Biotechnology from University of Tehran, Iran. His previous research experiences include study of glucose signaling pathway in yeast, fermentations and microarray data analysis. His research interests range from building new tools for synthetic biology to modeling signaling pathways and regulatory networks. Currently, he is developing a synthetic receptor system in yeast for sensing extracellular synthetic ligands.

Samuel Perli

Sam is a Ph.D. candidate in the Electrical Engineering and Computer Science department at MIT. Prior to his foray into Synthetic Biology, Sam earned a Bachelors degree in Electrical Engineering from IIT Madras and a Masters degree in Computer Science from MIT. As an undergrad, he won the best paper award at IEEE COMSWARE 2008 and received an Institute Silver Medal from IIT Madras. He is also a Kailath Fellow and a former MIT Presidential Fellow. Sam is currently studying specific mechanisms that give rise to systems-wide properties of biological systems such as robustness and evolvability. He is also working on developing a scalable architecture for designing complex transcriptional networks. Besides research, he enjoys playing the guitar, badminton and cooking.

Jacob Rubens

Jacob earned his Bachelor of Arts in Molecular Biology and Biochemistry from Washington University in St. Louis. As an undergraduate, Jacob researched the biosynthesis of a unique cyanobacterial photosynthetic pigment and led an undergraduate team in improving photosynthetic microbial biofuel production towards entry into a synthetic biology competition (iGEM). Jacob is a Ph.D. student in the Microbiology program at MIT and receives support from an NSF Graduate Research Fellowship. He is a member of the MIT Society of Energy Fellows and is interested in developing synthetic biology tools for applications in biotechnology and the human microbiome. To contact Jacob: jrubens@mit.edu

Tomi Jun

Tomi is an M.D. student in the Harvard- MIT Health Sciences and Technology program. He received his B.A. in Biology from Dartmouth College, where he worked on the molecular biology of iron homeostasis in Arabidopsis. Broadly, he is interested in manipulating biological systems to do useful things in human health. Being from Singapore, he has a particular interest in applications relevant to health in Southeast Asia. He is currently working to develop tools to study host-microbe interactions in the gut. 

Robert Citorik

Rob completed his undergraduate studies in microbiology at the University of New Hampshire, where he studied toxin production in EHEC. Upon graduating, he decided to continue in the field of pathogenic bacteria as a research assistant in the Infectious Disease department at Massachusetts General Hospital exploring virulence factors in Salmonella and Vibrio cholerae. Three years later, he found himself a PhD candidate in Microbiology at MIT where he is seeking to work somewhere at the interface of synthetic biology and infectious diseases, with particular interests in both antibiotic resistance and enteric pathogens. Outside of academia, Rob enjoys running, hiking, and mixed martial arts, as well as weekend trips back to the clean air of NH where syrup is simply assumed to be pure maple.

Mark Mimee

Mark is a member of the Microbiology Graduate PhD Program at MIT. He earned his B.Sc. in Microbiology and Immunology from McGill University, where he pursued undergraduate research on characterizing virulence factors in EHEC and EPEC. Mark came to MIT with a strong interest in applying synthetic biology techniques to develop new tools to combat bacterial pathogens and other infectious diseases. Outside of the lab, Mark enjoys cooking and laying down a groove on his double bass.

Rotation Graduate Students

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Nathaniel Roquet

Nathaniel received a B.A. in Physics from Princeton University in 2011. Currently he is a Ph.D. student in the Harvard Biophysics Program. He is interested in phage therapy and, more broadly, the medical applications of synthetic biology.  Outside of lab, Nathaniel likes to longboard and play basketball and squash.

Visiting Scientists and Students

Sanna Sillankorva

Sanna is a visiting postdoctoral fellow at the MIT Synthetic Biology group. She received her M.Sc. degree in Environmental Technologies, in 2004, and Ph.D. degree in Biological and Chemical Engineering, in 2008, from the University of Minho, Braga, Portugal. She is a postdoctoral fellow in the Institute of Biotechnology and Bioengineering-Centre of Biological Engineering within the Uminho Biofilm and the Bacteriophage Biotechnology groups. Her research interests are in developing bacteriophage and bacteriophage-based alternatives for the control of clinically relevant biofilms. She enjoys playing volleyball, travelling and hiking. 

Michele Becce

Michele is a visiting student at MIT and he is in his M.Sc. in Materials Engineering. He received his B.Sc. in Materials Engineering from Politecnico di Milano (Italy) in 2009 and has studied in TU Delft (The Netherlands) as an UNITECH exchange student in 2010/2011. He also have studied and worked for shorter periods of time in ParisTech (France), ETH Zurich (Switzerland), Trinity College Dublin (Ireland) and Chalmers University (Sweden). In Lu Lab he is working on mechanical characterization of bio-derived materials, mainly in the nanoscale, seeking for potential applications. Besides research, he swims with MIT Masters and enjoys travelling.

Undergraduate & UROP Students

Chris Yoon

Chris came to MIT after graduating from Seoul Science High School. He was a silver medalist in the 2007 International Chemistry Olympiad held in Moscow and a member of Korean National Chemistry team. His previous research experiences include research in the Langer Lab at MIT. Outside school, Chris grew up as a kid who loves everything about soccer. He is looking forward to becoming an M.D.-Ph.D after receiving his bachelors degree in Chemical-Biological Engineering.

Kristjan Eerik Kaseniit

Kristjan is an undergraduate from Estonia, enrolled in the new joint degree program by the EECS and Biology departments. He became fascinated by synthetic biology after hearing about it firsthand at a talk given by iGEM director Randy Rettberg. Outside of academics he enjoys playing the drums and the accordion.

Alumni