Yale iGEM 2011 Advisors

Farren Isaacs is an Assistant Professor of Molecular, Cellular, and Developmental Biology at Yale University. His lab is focused on developing foundational cellular and biomolecular engineering technologies to understand and engineer biological systems.

Thihan Padukkavidana is a recent PhD graduate from the Cell Biology department at Yale. His expertise are in translational biomedical research, particularly in the neurodegeneration field of neuroscience. He is currently working on disease mechanisms of Frontotemporal Dementia, Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis and Alzheimer's disease.

Adam Trexler is a fifth-year graduate student in the Rhoades lab. When he's not helping with the iGEM team, he studies the protein alpha-synuclein and its role in Parkinson's disease using primarily biophysical methods. When he's not in the lab, you can usually find him swimming, biking, or running.

Dan Spakowicz is a 5th year Graduate Student in the lab of Scott Strobel in the Molecular Biophysics and Biochemistry department at Yale. He studies novel biofuel pathways in filamentous fungi. This is his second year as an advisor to the Yale iGEM team.

Rebecca Brown is a 6th year graduate student who will (hopefully) finish her degree in the next few months. She is interested in the genetics of nerve regeneration and degeneration. When she's not in the lab, she feels guilty about not being in the lab.