The Team

Ruhi Choudhary

M.A.Sc. Candidate

B.A.Sc., University of Toronto

Ruhi works on engineering probiotic strains for the production of therapeutic molecules to help treat diseases such as Crohn's Disease. Her research interests include synthetic biology, gut microbiome engineering, metabolic engineering and analytical chemistry.

Email
ruhi(DOT)choudhary(AT)mail(DOT)utoronto(DOT)ca

Kevin Correia

Ph.D. Candidate

B.A.Sc., University of Waterloo

Kevin works on understanding the evolution of metabolism in yeast through bioinformatics, metabolic modeling, comparative genetics with CRISPR-Cas9 and fermentation. His research interests include metabolic engineering, yeast evolution and industrial fermentation.

Email
kevin(DOT)correia(AT)mail(DOT)utoronto(DOT)ca

Patrick Diep

M.A.Sc. Candidate

B.Sc., University of Waterloo

Patrick studies nickel binding proteins from soil and pathogenic bacteria to explore their potential applications as nickel capture/storage systems in biomining. His research interests include synthetic biology and environmental remediation.

Email
patrick(DOT)diep(AT)mail(DOT)utoronto(DOT)ca

Christian Euler

Ph.D. Candidate

B.A.Sc., University of Ottawa
B.Sc. (Hons), University of Ottawa

Christian works to understand regulatory mechanisms of metabolism at hierarchical and metabolic levels, and how these mechanisms interact. He uses protein engineering and optogenetic tools to create models of these control systems. His research interests include protein engineering, synthetic biology and modeling gene regulatory networks.

Email
christian(DOT)euler(AT)mail(DOT)utoronto(DOT)ca

Masood Khaksar

Ph.D. Candidate

M.A.Sc., Université de Montréal

Masood works on computational medicine . In his research , he is developing a multi-scale modelling framework to integrate  genomic and metabolomic data with physiological properties of the human body. His research interests include human metabolism, precision medicine and quantitative systems pharmacology.

Email
masood(DOT)khaksar(AT)mail(DOT)utoronto(DOT)ca

Taeho Kim

Ph.D. Candidate

Insert Education Here

Taeho works on engineering cyanobacteria to achieve photosynthetic bioconversion of carbon dioxide to high value chemicals such as butanediol. He also works on the screening and characterization of enzymes for the production of high-value chemicals and biofuels.

Email
barca(DOT)kim(AT)mail(DOT)utoronto(DOT)ca

Graham Mantay

M.A.Sc. Candidate

B.A.Sc., Queen's University

Graham works on the metabolic engineering of baker's yeast (Saccharomyces cerevisiae) to produce adipic acid - a monomer used in the production of nylon. His research interests include bioprocess development, industrial biotechnology and process optimization.

Email
graham.mantay@mail.utoronto.ca

Kayla Nemr

Ph.D. Candidate

B.A.Sc., University of Ottawa
B.Sc. (Hons), University of Ottawa

Kayla primarily works on metabolic engineering of microbes for sustainable and scalable chemical production. Her focus has been designing modular biosynthetic pathways based on carbon-carbon bond formation, and modular host engineering. Her research interests include metabolic engineering, synthetic biology, industrial biotechnology, and gut microbiome engineering.

Email
kayla(DOT)nemr(AT)mail(DOT)utoronto(DOT)ca

Aditya Vik Pandit

Ph.D. Candidate

B.A.Sc., University of Toronto
M.A.Sc., University of Toronto

Vik works on metabolic engineering of carbon fixing pathways into E. coli.  He has also worked on microbial electrosynthesis.  His research interests include synthetic biology, metabolic engineering, constraint based modelling and elementary flux mode analysis.

Email
a(DOT)pandit(AT)mail(DOT)utoronto(DOT)ca

Scott Proulx

M.A.Sc. Candidate

B.A.Sc., University of Ottawa
B.Sc. (Hons), University of Ottawa

Scott's research involves engineering Escherichia coli to produce commodity chemicals such as adipic acid. His research interests primarily involve metabolic engineering and dynamic control of synthetic pathways

Email
scott(DOT)proulx(AT)mail(DOT)utoronto(DOT)ca

Fawzi Salama

Ph.D. Candidate

Fawzi works on modeling the metabolism of microbial consortia in the human gut.

Email
f(DOT)salama(AT)mail(DOT)utoronto(DOT)ca

Jayesh Sonawane

Visiting Researcher

Jayesh is a pursuing his Ph.D. in a collaborative program at the Indian Institute of Technology - Bombay and Monash University, Melbourne, Australia. His research focuses on developing microbial fuel cells.

Email
jay1iisc(AT)gmail(DOT)com

Shyam Srinivasan

Ph.D. Candidate

B.Tech., NIT, Rourkela, India
M.Sc., University of Saskatchewan

Shyam's research is focused on understanding the impact of bistability on metabolic network design for the sustainable production of biochemicals from renewable feedstocks. He uses this understanding to develop algorithms for kinetic model-based  design for metabolic engineering. His research interests include optimization, systems identifications and parameter estimation using kinetic models.

Email
shyam(DOT)srinivasan(AT)mail(DOT)utoronto(DOT)ca

Naveen Venayak

Ph.D. Candidate

B.A.Sc., University of Ottawa
B.Sc. (Hons), University of Ottawa

Naveen works on engineering microbes with dynamic control to improve their performance. He is interested in developing new tools in synthetic biology, laboratory automation and transparent data analytics to expedite this process and improve workflows to engineer biology. His research interests include synthetic biology, laboratory automation, data analytics and metabolic engineering.

Email
naveen(DOT)venayak(AT)mail(DOT)utoronto(DOT)ca

Kaushik Raj Venkatesan

Ph.D. Candidate

B.E. (Hons), Birla Institute of Technology and Science (BITS) - Pilani, India

Kaushik works on developing robust and fast transcriptional switches for dynamic control of metabolism. He has also worked on the engineering of baker's yeast (Saccharomyces cerevisiae) to produce adipic acid. His research interests include synthetic biology, laboratory automation, metabolic engineering and systems biology.

Email
kaushik(DOT)venkatesan(AT)mail(DOT)utoronto(DOT)ca