I co-lead the Engineered Matter Labs community project at Genspace.

“Engineered Matter Labs is a nontraditional independent research team working out of Genspace in New York City.”

Synthetic biologists see living matter as programmable and malleable material. The results that arise from these discoveries open possibilities for more sustainable manufacturing techniques, new material possibilities, and new media for design exploration and expression. Inherently collaborative and transdisciplinary, biodesign raises questions about the scientific process, the place of creativity in innovative spaces, and the ways in which we must be critically engaged with the material world around us.

Mission

The mission of EML is to democratize the understanding of and interaction with molecular biology while developing functional materials for a sustainable world. Spider silk has been the holy grail for scientists for decades considering its role as a high-performance material. It's tougher than nylon, kevlar and carbon fibers and has many textile and medical applications given its biodegradable and biocompatible nature. With exposure to machine learning, biochemistry, synthetic biology lab work and business analysis, members begin to deeply understand the challenges behind protein expression and translating research to potential business applications.

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Leveraging understudied spider species to uncover novel biology on Experiment.com