People
Douglas Axe
has served as the director of Biologic since its incorporation in 2005. His research investigates the origin and evolution of proteins and protein systems, using both experimental approaches and computer simulation to examine the functional and structural constraints on evolutionary processes. He received a bachelor’s degree in chemical engineering from UC Berkeley, followed by a PhD from Caltech, where he studied metabolic and genetic regulation in bacteria. In postdoctoral work and subsequent work as a research scientist at the University of Cambridge, the Cambridge Medical Research Council Centre, and at the Babraham Institute in Cambridge, he developed several experimental approaches for assessing the functional constraints on natural enzymes. His work has appeared in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences USA, the Journal of Molecular Biology, and Biochemistry, among others, and has been reviewed in Nature and featured in a number of books, magazines and newspaper articles, including Life’s Solution by Simon Conway Morris and The Edge of Evolution by Michael Behe.
Lisanne D’Andrea-Winslow
is a professor of biology at Northwestern College. Her research focuses on the cellular biology of sea urchin immune cells. She received her BS, MS, and PhD from Rutgers University. Her fellowships, grants, and awards include the 1997 La Ligne Nationale Contre le Cancer, Comité des Alpes Maritimes Foreign Scientist Award, an NIH post-doctoral fellowship, an American Heart Association predoctoral fellowship, and the Sonn Excellence Graduate Fellowship at Rutgers University. She was recently awarded a Fulbright Scholarship to conduct her research on structure and function of sea urchin immune cells at the Misaki Marine Biological Station, Konegawa Prefecture, Japan.
Brendan Dixon
is a software architect, analyst, and developer, who joined Biologic Institute in 2006 to design and build the software for a state-of-the-art biological simulation system. He received a BS in business administration/information systems from Oregon State, and has worked for Microsoft, IBM, and Apple. Among his many roles at Microsoft, he was an architect and lead developer on the CSS–X/HTML layout engine introduced in Internet Explorer 4. In version 5 he continued his role as architect and developer, focusing on performance, flexibility and high-speed display technology. He has three patents pending.
Ann Gauger
is a senior research scientist at Biologic Institute. Her work uses molecular genetics and genomic engineering to study the origin, organization and operation of metabolic pathways. She received a BS in biology from MIT, and a PhD in developmental biology from the University of Washington, where she studied cell adhesion molecules involved in Drosophila embryogenesis. As a post-doctoral fellow in the Department of Molecular and Cellular Biology at Harvard, she cloned and characterized the Drosophila kinesin light chain. Her research has been published in Nature, Development, and the Journal of Biological Chemistry. Her awards include a National Science Foundation pre-doctoral fellowship and an American Cancer Society post-doctoral fellowship.
Guillermo Gonzalez
is an associate professor of astronomy at Grove City College in the Department of Physics. He received his PhD in astronomy from the University of Washington, followed by post-doctoral studies at the University of Texas, Austin, and the University of Washington. In 1995 he launched a long-term study of the characteristics of stars with planets which led to the discovery that stars rich in metals are more likely to have planets associated with them. Astronomers and astrobiologists around the world are pursuing research based on this work, two planets having been discovered as a result. He is co-originator of the Galactic Habitable Zone concept, which identifies the region of the Milky Way Galaxy that is most habitable to complex life. This idea captured the October 2001 cover story of Scientific American. He has published 69 articles in refereed astronomy and astrophysical journals including The Astrophysical Journal, The Astronomical Journal, Astronomy and Astrophysics, Icarus, and Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society. He is co-author of the second edition of Observational Astronomy, an advanced college astronomy textbook, and in 2004 he co-authored The Privileged Planet: How Our Place in the Cosmos is Designed for Discovery with Jay W. Richards.
David Keller
is an associate professor of chemistry in the Department of Chemistry and Chemical Biology at the University of New Mexico. His research focuses on the physics of force generation in molecular machines and involves both mathematical modeling of molecular dynamics and ultra-sensitive experimental probing by atomic force microscopy. He received his BS from Pacific Lutheran University, his PhD from the UC Berkeley, and was a postdoctoral fellow at Stanford University. His work has appeared in numerous journals, including Physics Today, Nature, Surface Science, and Biochemistry.
Philip Lu
is a biotechnologist specializing in protein purification and process column chromatography applications. He received his BS in microbiology from the University of Washington. He has been involved in a wide range of research projects, including studies of glycoprotein G from the Herpes Simplex II virus, the production and modification of polyclonal and monoclonal antibodies, and the development of large-scale processes for enzymatic digestion and purification of monoclonal antibodies. He was also involved in bringing the cytokine product “Leukine” from development to production for Immunex.
Robert J. Marks II
is a Distinguished Professor of Engineering at Baylor University. Working with mathematician William Dembski, he is pioneering mathematical and engineering approaches to study how evolving systems incorporate, transform, and export information. He received his PhD in electrical engineering from Texas Tech University, and was a professor of engineering at the University of Washington for many years before his move to Baylor. He holds three patents and is the recipient of many professional awards, including the IEEE Centennial Medal and the IEEE Circuits and Systems Society Golden Jubilee Award. He has published 120 articles and 21 book chapters, and is author, co-author or editor of eight books published by IEEE, MIT Press and Oxford University Press.
Richard von Sternberg
is a Research Collaborator at the National Museum of Natural History. He joined Biologic Institute as a principal investigator in 2007. With expertise in evolutionary biology and bioinformatics, he studies the organization of genomic information and how it relates to organismal form. He holds a PhD in molecular evolution from Florida International University and a PhD in systems science from Binghamton University, specializing in theoretical biology. He has been a staff scientist at the National Center for Biotechnology Information and a Research Associate at the Smithsonian Institution’s National Museum of Natural History, where he served as editor of the Proceedings of the Biological Society of Washington. Dr. Sternberg’s work has been published in such journals as Genetica, Evolutionary Theory, Journal of Comparative Biology, Crustacean Research, Journal of Natural History, Journal of Morphology, Journal of Biological Systems, and the Annals of the New York Academy of Sciences. More information is available at his website: http://www.richardsternberg.org/.
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