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Preparing for Future Products of Biotechnology (2017)

Chapter: Appendix A: Biographical Sketches of Committee Members

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Suggested Citation:"Appendix A: Biographical Sketches of Committee Members." National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine. 2017. Preparing for Future Products of Biotechnology. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/24605.
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Appendix A

Biographical Sketches of Committee Members

Richard M. Murray (Chair) is Thomas E. and Doris Everhart Professor of Control and Dynamical Systems and Bioengineering at California Institute of Technology. He received his BS degree in electrical engineering from California Institute of Technology in 1985 and his MS and PhD degrees in electrical engineering and computer sciences from the University of California, Berkeley, in 1988 and 1991, respectively. Professor Murray’s research is in the application of feedback and control to mechanical, information, and biological systems. Current projects include integration of control, communications, and computer science in multiagent systems, information dynamics in networked feedback systems, analysis of insect flight control systems, and biological circuit design. Professor Murray has recently developed a new course at Caltech that is aimed at teaching the principles and tools of control to a broader audience of scientists and engineers, with particular emphasis on applications in biology and computer science. Professor Murray is co-founder and board member of Synvitrobio, a startup biotechnology company focused on commercialization of cell-free synthesis methods.

Richard M. Amasino is a professor with the Department of Biochemistry at the University of Wisconsin–Madison. His work focuses on how plants perceive seasonal cues such as changing day length and temperature and how they use such cues to determine when to initiate flowering. His most recent focus has been on understanding the biochemical pathway through which perception of winter cold leads to flowering in the spring—a process known as vernalization. Dr. Amasino is also a member of the Great Lakes Bioenergy Research Center, which is one of the three bioenergy research centers established by the U.S. Department of Energy. His work with the center involves studying the biochemical basis of plant biomass accumulation as well as directing the education and outreach program of the center. Dr. Amasino is a Howard Hughes Medical Institute professor, a member of the U.S. National Academy of Sciences, and a fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science. His teaching and research have resulted in several national and international awards, including the Alexander von Humboldt Foundation Award in 1999. He has served both as president and chair of the board of trustees of the American Society of Plant Biolo-

Suggested Citation:"Appendix A: Biographical Sketches of Committee Members." National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine. 2017. Preparing for Future Products of Biotechnology. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/24605.
×

gists. Dr. Amasino received his BS in biology from Pennsylvania State University and his MS and PhD in biology/biochemistry from Indiana University.

Steven P. Bradbury is a professor of environmental toxicology in the Departments of Natural Resource Ecology and Management and Entomology. He is also a faculty member in Iowa State University’s Graduate Toxicology Program. Dr. Bradbury is contributing to research, teaching, and extension in university-wide toxicology, environmental, agriculture, and natural resource science and policy programs. Areas of emphasis include pesticide resistance management; pollination services and monarch butterfly conservation; and sustainable agriculture, including the role of integrated pest management within nested layers of governance. Dr. Bradbury retired from the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) in 2014. During his last 4 years at EPA he was the Director of the Office of Pesticide Programs. In this role he led evaluation of new and existing pesticides, including biotechnology products; led integration of federal pesticide registration decisions within related international, national, state, and stakeholder-initiated programs; and addressed management options for emerging, high-impact pests, pesticide resistance, and water quality, endangered species, and pollinator protection. Prior to joining the pesticide program in 2002, Dr. Bradbury had more than 15 years of experience in EPA’s Office of Research and Development leading efforts to advance human health and ecological risk assessments in support of water quality, pesticide, and industrial chemical programs. Dr. Bradbury has a BS in molecular biology from the University of Wisconsin–Madison and an MS in entomology (insecticide toxicology) and a PhD in toxicology and entomology from Iowa State University. He has published more than 70 peer-reviewed journal articles and book chapters. In 2014, Dr. Bradbury received the Henry A. Wallace Award for Outstanding Leadership to National and International Agriculture from the College of Agriculture and Life Sciences, Iowa State University.

Barbara J. Evans joined the University of Houston Law Center, a Texas state-supported educational institution, in 2007 and currently holds the Alumnae College Professorship in Law and is Director of the Center for Biotechnology & Law at the law school. She teaches and conducts research in the areas of data privacy, health information system governance, and legal issues in genomic testing, gene editing, and precision medicine. She was named a Greenwall Foundation Faculty Scholar in Bioethics for 2010–2013 and has been elected to membership in the American Law Institute. Prior to pursuing an academic career, she was a partner in the international regulatory practice of a large New York law firm and also advised clients on U.S. privacy, research, and medical device regulatory matters. From 2004 to 2007, she was a research professor of medicine and director of the Program in Pharmacogenomics, Ethics, and Public Policy at the Indiana University School of Medicine/Center for Bioethics. She holds an electrical engineering degree from The University of Texas at Austin; MS and PhD degrees from Stanford University; a JD from Yale Law School; and an LLM in health law from the University of Houston, and she completed a postdoctoral fellowship in clinical ethics at the M.D. Anderson Cancer Center.

Steven L. Evans is currently a Fellow at Dow AgroSciences in Seeds Discovery R&D. He received his BA and BS degrees in chemistry and microbiology from the University of Mississippi and a PhD in microbial physiology from the University of Mississippi Medical School. He was a National Institutes of Health postdoctoral fellow at the University of California, Berkeley, and subsequently with the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) in Peoria, Illinois. In 1988 he joined Mycogen Corporation, now Dow AgroSciences, where he has been involved in the development of natural and recombinant biopesticides, including several crop traits from the Mycogen pipeline. At USDA and subsequently in industry roles, Dr. Evans blends high-resolution chemical analysis with enzymology to research agricultural applications of biotechnology. He continues to identify and acquire

Suggested Citation:"Appendix A: Biographical Sketches of Committee Members." National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine. 2017. Preparing for Future Products of Biotechnology. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/24605.
×

differentiating biotechnology capabilities. Dr. Evans is chair emeritus of the Industrial Advisory Board of the National Science Foundation–sponsored SynBERC synthetic biology consortium, serves on the Executive Board of the nonprofit Engineering Biology Research Consortium, and is co-chair of the Biotechnology Innovation Organization’s Industrial and Environmental Section synthetic biology subteam.

Farren Isaacs is an assistant professor of molecular, cellular, and developmental biology at Yale University. He received a BSE degree in bioengineering from the University of Pennsylvania and obtained his PhD from the Biomedical Engineering Department and Bioinformatics Program at Boston University. In his PhD he integrated theory and experiment to study gene regulatory network dynamics and then pioneered the design and development of synthetic RNA components capable of probing and programming cellular function. He then was a research fellow in the Department of Genetics at Harvard Medical School working on genome-engineering technologies with George Church. At Harvard, he developed enabling technologies for genome engineering, including MAGE (Multiple Automated Genome Engineering) and CAGE (Conjugative Assembly Genome Engineering). His research is focused on developing foundational genomic and biomolecular engineering technologies with the goal of developing new genetic codes and engineered cells that serve as factories for chemical, drug, and biofuel production. He has recently been named a “rising young star of science” by Genome Technology Magazine, a Beckman Young Investigator by the Arnold and Mabel Beckman Foundation, and recipient of a Young Professor award from DuPont. Dr. Isaacs is also co-founder and chief technology advisor of enEvolv, a startup biotechnology firm aimed at commercializing the MAGE technology he co-invented.

Martha A. Krebs is senior scientist in The Pennsylvania State University’s College of Engineering and principal investigator and director of the Consortium for Building Energy Innovation at The Navy Yard in Philadelphia. In her most recent previous position, Dr. Krebs worked with University of California, Davis (UC Davis), faculty and staff to leverage and expand research programs through federal, state, and private partnerships. In that role she also has served as science advisor for the California Energy Commission. Before joining UC Davis, she was the commission’s deputy executive director for research and development (R&D). From 1993 to 2000, Dr. Krebs served as assistant secretary and director of the Office of Science at the U.S. Department of Energy, responsible for the basic research program that supports the department’s energy, environmental, and national-security missions. She also advised the Secretary of Energy on the department’s R&D portfolio and the institutional health of its national laboratories. From 1983 to 1993, Dr. Krebs served as an associate director for planning and development at the U.S. Department of Energy’s Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, where she was responsible for strategic planning for research and facilities, technology transfer, and science education and outreach. From 1977 to 1983, she served on the House Committee on Science first as a professional staff member and then as subcommittee staff director, responsible for authorizing the department’s non-nuclear energy technologies and energy science programs. Dr. Krebs received her bachelor’s degree and doctorate in physics from the Catholic University of America. She is a fellow of the American Physical Society, the American Association for the Advancement of Science, and the Association of Women in Science.

Jennifer Kuzma is the Goodnight-North Carolina GlaxoSmithKline Foundation Distinguished Professor in Social Sciences and co-director of the Genetic Engineering and Society Center at North Carolina State University. Prior to this position she was a faculty member in science and technology policy at the Humphrey School of Public Affairs, University of Minnesota (2003–2013); study director at the National Research Council in Washington, DC, for genetic engineering and bioterrorism (1999–2003); and an American Association for the Advancement of Science Risk

Suggested Citation:"Appendix A: Biographical Sketches of Committee Members." National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine. 2017. Preparing for Future Products of Biotechnology. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/24605.
×

Policy Fellow at the U.S. Department of Agriculture (1997–1999). She has more than 100 scholarly publications on emerging technologies and governance and has been studying genetic engineering and its societal aspects for over 25 years. She discovered the bacteria product isoprene, a precursor to natural rubber, during from her PhD work in biochemistry, and her postdoctoral work in plant molecular biology resulted in a publication in the journal Science. Dr. Kuzma serves on several national and international advisory boards, including the World Economic Forum’s Global Futures Council on Technology, Values, and Policy; the Scientific Advisory Board of the Center for Science in the Public Interest; and the U.S. Council on Agricultural Science and Technology’s Task Force on Gene-Editing. She has held several leadership positions, including the Society for Risk Analysis Council & Secretary, Chair of the Gordon Conference on S&T Policy, the Food and Drug Administration’s Blood Products Advisory Committee, and the United Nations WHO-FAO Expert Group for Nanotechnologies in Food and Agriculture. In 2014, she received the Society for Risk Analysis Sigma Xi Distinguished Lecturer Award for recognition of her outstanding contributions to the field of risk analysis. She has been called upon in national media for her expertise on genetic-engineering policy issues, including recently in The Washington Post, Scientific American, The New York Times, 2015 World’s Fair exhibit, Nature, and National Public Radio.

Mary E. Maxon is the Biosciences Area Principal Deputy at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, where she is responsible for developing strategies for the use of biosciences to address national-scale challenges in energy and environment. Previously, she was Assistant Director for Biological Research at the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy (OSTP) in the Executive Office of the President, where she developed the National Bioeconomy Blueprint. Before moving to OSTP, Dr. Maxon ran the Marine Microbiology Initiative at the Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation, which supports the application of molecular approaches and comprehensive models to detect and validate environmentally induced changes in marine microbial ecosystems. Prior to that, Dr. Maxon served as Deputy Vice Chair at the California Institute for Regenerative Medicine, where she drafted the intellectual property policies for California stem cell grantees in the nonprofit and for-profit research sectors. Previously, she was Associate Director and Anti-infective Program Leader for Cytokinetics, a biotechnology company in South San Francisco and team leader at Microbia, Inc., based in Cambridge, Massachusetts, where she contributed to the discovery and development of the Precision Engineering technology for production of commercial products using metabolic engineering. Dr. Maxon received her PhD from the University of California, Berkeley, in molecular cell biology and did postdoctoral research in biochemistry and genetics at the University of California, San Francisco.

Raul F. Medina’s research interests center around the role that ecological factors play in the population genetics of arthropods. Dr. Medina is particularly interested in the incorporation of evolutionary ecology considerations into pest control practices. His laboratory is currently assessing how species interactions at macroscopic (e.g., host–parasite associations) and microscopic (e.g., arthropod microbiomes) levels may affect genetic variation of agricultural pests and arthropod vectors of human disease. Dr. Medina is currently exploring if the same principles governing insect herbivores’ adaptation to their hosts translate in arthropod parasites of animals. Dr. Medina completed his bachelor’s degree in biology in Lima, Peru, at the Universidad Nacional Agraria La Molina. He then obtained a Graduate Certificate in conservation biology from the University of Missouri in Saint Louis. He received his master’s degree and PhD from the University of Maryland working on predation of forest caterpillars and on hymenopteran parasitoid population genetics, respectively. Soon after his PhD, Dr. Medina started working at Texas A&M University, where he is an associate professor.

Suggested Citation:"Appendix A: Biographical Sketches of Committee Members." National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine. 2017. Preparing for Future Products of Biotechnology. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/24605.
×

David Rejeski is the director of the Science, Technology, and Innovation Program at the Environmental Law Institute (ELI), a nonpartisan research institute in Washington, DC. His research at ELI focuses on better understanding the environmental impacts and opportunities created through emerging technologies and their underlying innovation systems, from synthetic biology to 3-D printing; structural changes in the economy driven by sharing platforms, new business models, and financing systems such as crowdfunding; and new roles for the public in environmental protection, provided through citizen science, do-it-yourself biology, makers, or other emergent, distributed networks of people and things. He co-founded the Serious Games movement in 2003 and Games for Change in 2004 (http://www.gamesforchange.org) and is interested in the use of video game technologies to help engage the public around complex system challenges facing policy makers. Prior to ELI, he directed the Science, Technology and Innovation Program at the Woodrow Wilson Center. He also worked at the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy, the Council on Environmental Quality, and the Environmental Protection Agency (Office of Policy, Planning and Evaluation). He is a Fellow of the National Academy of Public Administration, a guest researcher at the International Institute of Applied Systems Analysis in Austria, a member of EPA’s National Advisory Council on Environmental Policy and Technology, and a board member of American University’s Center on Environmental Policy. He has been a visiting scholar at Yale University’s School of Forestry and Environmental Studies and previously served on EPA’s Science Advisory Board and the National Science Foundation’s Advisory Committee on Environmental Research and Education. He has graduate degrees in public administration and environmental design from Harvard and Yale Universities.

Jeffrey Wolt is a professor in the programs of Agronomy, Environmental Science, and Toxicology at Iowa State University, where he is affiliated with the Biosafety Institute for Genetically Modified Agricultural Products and co-directs the Crop Bioengineering Center. He started his academic career studying biology at Case Western Reserve University and completed his BS in bioagricultural science at Colorado State University. He received his MS and PhD in agriculture from Auburn University with emphasis in environmental soil chemistry. His expertise includes soil solution chemistry, environmental chemistry, biogeochemistry, ecotoxicology, and risk assessment. Prior to coming to Iowa State, he held academic appointments with the University of Tennessee, the University of Hawaii, and Purdue University. He also worked as an environmental chemist and risk analyst with Dow Chemical. Dr. Wolt’s current research interests include biotechnology safety analysis applied to risk management and science policy decision making; environmental and ecotoxicological risk assessment; soil and environmental chemistry applied to exposure assessment, efficacy, environmental monitoring, environmental toxicology, and environmental fate of xenobiotics and genetically modified agricultural products; and applied soil solution chemistry. He also works with regulators and scientists throughout the world to formulate and promote harmonized approaches for assessing the safety of genetically engineered plants. His laboratory group works on the environmental fate of plant products introduced into agroecosystems.

Suggested Citation:"Appendix A: Biographical Sketches of Committee Members." National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine. 2017. Preparing for Future Products of Biotechnology. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/24605.
×

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Suggested Citation:"Appendix A: Biographical Sketches of Committee Members." National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine. 2017. Preparing for Future Products of Biotechnology. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/24605.
×
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Suggested Citation:"Appendix A: Biographical Sketches of Committee Members." National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine. 2017. Preparing for Future Products of Biotechnology. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/24605.
×
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Suggested Citation:"Appendix A: Biographical Sketches of Committee Members." National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine. 2017. Preparing for Future Products of Biotechnology. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/24605.
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Suggested Citation:"Appendix A: Biographical Sketches of Committee Members." National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine. 2017. Preparing for Future Products of Biotechnology. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/24605.
×
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Suggested Citation:"Appendix A: Biographical Sketches of Committee Members." National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine. 2017. Preparing for Future Products of Biotechnology. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/24605.
×
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Suggested Citation:"Appendix A: Biographical Sketches of Committee Members." National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine. 2017. Preparing for Future Products of Biotechnology. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/24605.
×
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Between 1973 and 2016, the ways to manipulate DNA to endow new characteristics in an organism (that is, biotechnology) have advanced, enabling the development of products that were not previously possible. What will the likely future products of biotechnology be over the next 5–10 years? What scientific capabilities, tools, and/or expertise may be needed by the regulatory agencies to ensure they make efficient and sound evaluations of the likely future products of biotechnology?

Preparing for Future Products of Biotechnology analyzes the future landscape of biotechnology products and seeks to inform forthcoming policy making. This report identifies potential new risks and frameworks for risk assessment and areas in which the risks or lack of risks relating to the products of biotechnology are well understood.

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