Nina DiPrimio
Nina is a scientist at Perlstein Lab, an early stage biotech company focused on the discovery of therapeutics for rare genetic diseases using high throughput screening on model organisms containing patient specific mutations. She earned her PhD in pharmacology, specifically Adeno-associated virus vector development for gene delivery, from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and completed postdoctoral training in synthetic biology at UC Berkeley. Additionally, Nina is the editor of O'Reilly Media's BioCoder.
Smart collaborations beget smart solutions
Software developers and hardware engineers team up with biologists to address laboratory inefficiencies.
Download a free copy of the new edition of BioCoder, our newsletter covering the biological revolution.
Following the Synthetic Biology Leadership Excellence Accelerator Program (LEAP) showcase, I met with fellows Mackenzie Cowell, co-founder of DIYbio.org, and Edward Perello, co-founder of Desktop Genetics. Cowell and Perello both wanted to know what processes in laboratory research are inefficient and how we can eliminate or optimize them.
One solution we’re finding promising is pairing software developers and hardware engineers with biologists in academic labs or biotech companies to engineer small fixes, which could result in monumental increases in research productivity.
An example of an inefficient lab process that has yet to be automated is fruit fly — Drosophila — manipulation. Drosophila handling and maintenance is laborious, and Dave Zucker and Matt Zucker from Flysorter are developing a technology using computer vision and machine learning software to automate these manual tasks; the team is currently engineering prototypes. This is a perfect example of engineers developing a technology to automate a completely manual and extremely tedious laboratory task. Check them out, and stay tuned for an article from them in the October issue of BioCoder. Read more…
Announcing BioCoder issue 8
BioCoder 8: neuroscience, robotics, gene editing, microbiome sequence analysis, and more.
Download a free copy of the new edition of BioCoder, our newsletter covering the biological revolution.
We are thrilled to announce the eighth issue of BioCoder. This marks two years of diverse, educational, and cutting-edge content, and this issue is no exception. Highlighted in this issue are technologies and tools that span neuroscience, diagnostics, robotics, gene editing, microbiome sequence analysis, and more.
Glen Martin interviewed Tim Marzullo, co-founder of Backyard Brains, to learn more about how their easy-to-use kits, like the RoboRoach, demonstrate how nervous systems work.
Marc DeJohn from Biomeme discusses their smartphone diagnostics technology for on-site gene detection of disease, biothreat targets, and much more.
Daniel Modulevsky, Charles Cuerrier, and Andrew Pelling from Pelling Lab at the University of Ottawa discuss different types of open source biomaterials for regenerative medicine and their use of de-cellularized apple tissue to generate 3D scaffolds for cells. If you follow their tutorial, you can do it, too!
aBioBot, highlighted by co-founder Raghu Machiraju, is a device that uses visual sensing and feedback to perform encodable laboratory tasks. Machiraju argues that “progress in biotechnology will come from the use of open user interfaces and open-specification middleware to drive and operate flexible robotic platforms.” Read more…