Synthetic Biologist

My academic life from 2010-2022

Harvard Systems Biology

I have a PhD in Systems Biology from Harvard Medical School. I worked in Pam Silver's lab and wrote my thesis about engineering microbial metabolism.

Université Paris Cité

From 2010-2021 I was a postdoc and research group leader at the CRI in Paris (since renamed the LPI). My lab studied antimicrobial resistance and built tools to make drug discovery cheaper.

Synthetic Biology One

In 2018 I created a 61-episode YouTube series dedicated to teaching core techniques and concepts in synthetic biology. As of 2025 it has 20,000+ subscribers and 1 million+ total views.

My Publications

My journal publications are under my legal name, Edwin. (ORCID: 0000-0002-4211-1716)

The iGEM Grand Jamboree and the Serious Fun of Engineering Biology (2025). ACS Synthetic Biology

Spatial engineering of E. coli with addressable phase-separated RNAs (2022). Cell

Low-cost anti-mycobacterial drug discovery using engineered E. coli (2022). Nature Communications

Empowering grassroots innovation to accelerate biomedical research (2021). PLoS Biology

A survival model for course-course interactions in a Massive Open Online Course platform (2021). PLoS ONE.

The smell of us – crowdsourcing human body odor evaluation (2016). Human Computation

Phage-mediated Delivery of Targeted sRNA Constructs to Knock Down Gene Expression in E. coli. (2016). JOVE

In situ characterization of mycobacterial growth inhibition by lytic enzymes expressed in vectorized E. coli. (2014) ACS Synthetic Biology

Silencing of antibiotic resistance in E. coli with engineered phage bearing small regulatory RNAs. (2014) ACS Synthetic Biology

An objective function exploiting suboptimal solutions in metabolic networks (2013). BMC Systems Biology

A synthetic system links FeFe-hydrogenases to essential E. coli sulfur metabolism. (2011) Journal of Biological Engineering

Dynamics in the mixed microbial concourse. (2010) Genes & Development

Emergent cooperation in microbial metabolism. (2010) Molecular Systems Biology

Insulation of a synthetic hydrogen metabolism circuit in bacteria. (2010) Journal of Biological Engineering

Hierarchical structure in the Drosophila mojavensis cluster. (2004) Hereditas