Meet the Science Advisory Board
External Advisory Board
Professor Laura Itzhaki
| University of Cambridge Department of Pharmacology Laura Itzhaki took up a Lectureship in the Department of Pharmacology in 2013. Laura is co-Director of Cambridge Academy of Therapeutics Sciences. In October 2020 she became Head of Department of Pharmacology. Her research focuses on a class of proteins with very distinctive architectures, known as tandem-repeat proteins. Her group and others have shown that the simple modular, one-dimensional architecture of tandem-repeat proteins gives them distinctive properties that make it uniquely straightforward to map the energetics of their structures and to rationally redesign their stability, folding and binding function. This class of proteins is thus an exceptionally sensitive and versatile tool that they are now exploiting to dissect otherwise intractable cellular mechanisms. They are also exploring how to exploit the extraordinary design-ability of these proteins for biomedical and biotechnology applications. | Professor Peter Olmsted
| Georgetown University Department of Physics Peter Olmsted is a Fellow of the Institute of Physics (UK), the American Physical Society (Division of Polymer Physics), and the Society of Rheology, and he was awarded the British Society of Rheology Annual Award in 2008. His research achievements include models for polymer crystallization at rest and under flow, theories for shear banding in complex fluids such as polymer and surfactants, an experimental-computational collaboration that revealed how mechanical force unfolds proteins, and recent work on polymer dynamics and disentanglement during additive manufacturing. His current research is mainly theory and computer simulation, and includes rheology, dynamics and instabilities in soft matter, polymers, lipid membranes, and proteins. Common threads in his work are phase transitions, non-equilibrium phenomena, and fluctuations. He works closely with experimentalists, and often on industrially-motivated problems. |
Professor Martin Jonikas
| Princeton University Department of Molecular Biology Martin Jonikas obtained a B.S. in Aerospace Engineering from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in 2004. He completed his Ph.D. in 2009 at the University of California, San Francisco working with Jonathan Weissman, Maya Schuldiner and Peter Walter on high-throughput genetics and protein folding in the endoplasmic reticulum. In 2010 he started his laboratory at the Carnegie Institution for Science on Stanford campus. In 2016, he moved his laboratory to Princeton. Hiss research seeks to advance the basic understanding of cell biology by studying the pyrenoid, a mysterious phase-separated organelle that enhances CO2 capture in nearly all eukaryotic algae. | Professor Bert Poolman
| University of Groningen Groningen Biomolecular Sciences and Biotechnology Institute Prof Bert Poolman |
