Synthetic Biology
ABOUT
ABOUT
Synthetic biology presents to us exciting opportunities where biology is used to enable engineering and in turn, engineering is used to redesign biology. The Molecular Engineering lab brings together multi-disciplinary individuals in the fields of biochemistry, bioinformatics, enzyme and genetic engineering, to develop novel technologies and applications. Within this network of expertise, we are interested to examine and apply correlations from genes to proteins to product towards applications for sustainability, natural product discovery and human health.
I am interested in accelerating science, by applying our synthetic biology, protein and biochemistry expertise for genomics, strain, metabolic and enzyme engineering. (Also, a chemical engineer)
I received my PhD from Department of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering, National University of Singapore (NUS), in the year 2018. At NUS, I developed computational biology tools, genome-scale models and omics-integrated approaches to study and evaluate lactic acid bacteria (LAB) for their probiotic capabilities. I later joined Molecular Engineering Laboratory (MEL) at A*STAR as a research fellow and integrated genome assembly and natural product mining pipelines involving 1000s of Actinobacterial strains into my workflow. Being part of Institute of Molecular and Cell biology (IMCB), I also serve as a Principal Investigator for the Data Science and Analytics programme (SIBER), engaging in Singapore's synthetic biology goals. My long-term focus remains using metabolism-centric computational approaches to study cell-cell interactions in the contexts of human-gut microbiome and cancer.
Li Hao, Amy, PhDResearch Scientist (IMCB)Assistant Prof (NUS, Chemistry)li_hao@imcb.a-star.edu.sgLinkedin Add Publications Hao's team at NUS lab
I studied Biochemistry in University of Wisconsin-Madison and received my PhD in Chemical and Systems Biology at Stanford University. I did my post-doctoral work in Molecular Engineering Laboratory, A*STAR, a research lab started by the late Nobel Laureate Dr. Sydney Brenner. My work focuses on understanding the functional roles of the human microbiome by finding the link between microbial genes and their relevant enzymatic activities. I enjoy reading medical non-fictions, traveling around the world and listening to music compositions by Howard Shore, Christopher Tin and Joe Hisaishi.
RNA Synthetic biologist and bioinformatician with interests in high-throughput assay development, lab automation, virology and cellular medicine.
I studied Chemistry as an undergraduate at the University of Cambridge as part of the A*STAR NSS (BS-PhD) scholarship. I subsequently enrolled in the Chemistry and Chemical Biology PhD program at Harvard University with Dr. David Liu. As a graduate student in the Liu lab, I developed the first mitochondrial base editor that enables precise installation and correction of point mutations in organelle DNA. Following my PhD, I joined MEL as a Research Fellow in 2022. I am interested in multidisciplinary projects that involve engineering and evolving proteins for gene editing, and possibly for agriculture and biomanufacturing.
I have been in MEL since 2015. Our team focus on gene editing, mainly CRISPR, in Actinomyces, to activate silent gene clusters that produce bioactive compounds. Apart from molecular cloning & bacterial conjugation, I am also tasked to do Nanopore sequencing or anything that involves sequencing.
I did my honours degree in biochemistry where I dipped my fingers into peptide synthesis and protein purification. Since joining MEL, I have acquired skills such as molecular cloning, protein expression and purification both in e. coli and lactic acid bacteria. I am currently working in gene editing in Streptomyces towards the production of bioactive compounds.
I started doing research as an Honours student, then as a Research Assistant at the Cancer Science Institute of Singapore, National University of Singapore. Subsequently, I joined the Molecular Engineering Lab (MEL) at A*STAR as a Research Officer. I am currently studying the use of protein engineering techniques to enhance the sweetness of a sweet-tasting protein. I am also one of the Safety Officers for the lab.
Nadiah Binte Zulkarnain (Research Officer)nadiah_zulkarnain@imcb.a-star.edu.sgLinkedin Add Publications
I worked with Dr Wong Fong Tian for almost three years, working on multiple projects involving natural products in Actinomycetes, engineering of Lactic Acid Bacteria and genomic DNA extraction. I had previously worked with the Arabidopsis Thaliana for my Final Year Project, into which I have successfully cloned multiple transcriptional reporters.
Graduated from National University of Singapore in 2019 with a B.Sc in Pharmacy. My research interests include the pathogenesis and pathophysiology of skin diseases, such as eczema and psoriasis. I enjoy listening to music, making music, analyzing music, and exploring new genres of music.
An aspiring young scientist that hopes to find solutions for sustainable food production and novel food stuffs
I have been with A*STAR for more than 2 decades, having vast technical experiences not limited to next generation sequencing, molecular work, tissue culture, mice and zebrafish work, comparative genomics and currently a lab manager involved in the day to day running of the lab, liaising with other departments such as Finance, Procurement, Safety, Admin manager, etc. Point of contact for MEL.
Elaine Tiong (Research Officer)elaine_tiong@imcb.a-star.edu.sg
Graduated with a BSc in Life Science from the National University of Singapore. I was previously under the mentorship of Prof. Chris Sham, before joining MEL as a Research Officer in 2021. I am currently part of the team working on synthetic biology research at MEL.
Graduated from NTU Materials Science and Engineering. My interests lie in solving real-world problems by implementing solutions related to computer science. Currently working on developing methods to integrate metabolic models, machine learning and omics datasets to analyze and improve microbial cell factories.
Collaborators
Collaborators
Gregory Adrian Gunawan(PhD Candidate under the A*STAR Graduate Scholarship)gregoryag@u.nus.eduLinkedin Add orcid#
A trained medicinal chemist who is currently pursuing a PhD in synthetic biology to harness the biosynthetic pathways in bacteria to discover novel antimicrobial compounds and sustainable biocatalysts.