Friday Seminars

DEB294/ECH 294 - Current Progress in Biotechnology Seminars (a.k.a. "Friday Seminars")

Ongoing for nearly 30 years, the Biotech Program hosts Friday seminars weekly at 11:00am during the Fall, Winter, and Spring academic quarters. This seminar course entitled, "Current Progress in Biotechnology", is designed for STEM doctoral students interested in biotech innovation and industry careers, and is open to the campus community and members of the public. 

Friday seminars will be held in person in 1022 Green Hall unless otherwise indicated on the schedule below. If interested in attending a Zoom seminar listed below, but not officially enrolled in the DEB294/ECH294 course, please contact Program Manager Jacki Balderama (jbalderama at ucdavis dot edu) for the registration link. 

Fall Quarter 2024 Seminar Schedule

Note: Seminar titles will be updated as the information becomes available. September 27th will be an organizational class meeting for enrolled students. 

• Oct 4 - “Learn to Make a Difference with Your Science:  Innovation and Entrepreneurship Opportunities at UCD”, Niki Peterson (Senior Program Manager, UC Davis Institute for Innovation and Entrepreneurship)
• Oct 11 – “How to Translate your Research and Ideas into a Startup”, Mike Lemcke (Associate Director, UC Davis Venture Catalyst)
• Oct 18 – “Shaping the Future of Biologics Manufacturing: Leveraging Your Expertise to Unlock New Opportunities at Lonza Vacaville”, Dr. Yixing Lu (DEB Alum, Manufacturing Data Scientist, Genentech) & Salvador Toscano (Engineer, Genentech)
• Oct 25 – “Leveraging Molecular Memory to Decouple Crop Production from Climate Instability”, Savannah Braden, MS (Founder and CTO, Temporal Ag)
• Nov 1 – “Clinical Development and Regulatory Medical Writing within the Pharmaceutical Industry”, Dr. Candace Crowley (DEB Alum, Assoc. Director Regulatory Medical Writing, Arrowhead Pharmaceuticals)
• Nov 8 – “Discovery and Development: An Ongoing Journey”, Dr. Tom Reed (UC Davis Alum, Founder and CEO, BioSolutions Design) ZOOM Seminar
• Nov 15 – “UC Davis, Beer, Wine, Yeast, and Mushrooms: How I Became a World-Famous Fungus Fondler and Science Communicator”, Dr. Gordon Walker (DEB Alum, Science Communicator, Author, and Founder, Fascinated by Fungi)
• Nov 22 – “Translational Skills and Strategic innovation in Biotech and Pharma”, Dr. Olu Oguyankin (DEB Alum, Director, Global R&D Strategy, ViiV/GSK) ZOOM Seminar
• Dec 6 - “Mining the Microbiome:  Development and Commercialization of Native Microbes as Next Generation Probiotics”, Dr. Corey Dodge (DEB Alum, Native Microbials) ZOOM Seminar

Recent Seminars

Spring Quarter 2024 Seminar Schedule

• Apr 12 – “Phase Appropriate Development of Small Molecules: From Discovery to First in Human Studies”, Dr. Marcus Deloney (DEB Alum, Research Scientist, Formulations and Process Development, Gilead Sciences)
• Apr 19 – “My Path: From Singular Focus to Broad Applications and now, Singular Focus and Singular Application”, Dr. Nancy Rashid (Director, IP & Licensing, TurtleTree)
• Apr 26 – “Title TBA”, Dr. Zane Starkewolfe (DEB Alum, Director of Corporate Development, WuXi Biologics)
• May 3 – “Industry Careers as an Analytical Chemist”, Dr. Randall Robinson (Research and Development Scientist, Agilent)
• May 10 – “Quality Risk Management (QRM): Using a Risk Based Approach to bring Innovative Treatments to Patients”, Tina Self, MBA (Vice President and Site Manager, Bayer Berkeley)
• May 17 – “Bioanalysis of Oligonucleotide Therapeutics”, Dr. Karan Agrawal (DEB Alum, Senior Scientist, Preclinical Safety and Translational Sciences, Johnson & Johnson Innovative Medicine)
• May 24 – CANCELLED - Dr. Ian Gaudet (Senior Director and Site Head, Miltenyi Biotec)
• May 31 – “Commercializing Nematode Pheromones: R&D, Scaling Manufacturing, Partnering, Growing Team”, Dr. Fatma Kaplan (CEO & Co-founder, Pheronym, Inc.)

Winter Quarter 2024 Seminar Schedule

• Jan. 19 – "Overlapping Work in Environmental Regulation and Biotechnology", Dr. Keisha Williams (UCD Alum, Toxicologist, Michigan Department of Environment, Great Lakes, and Energy) (Zoom)
• Jan. 26 – "The IFF Sustainability Journey Using Industrial Biotechnology", Dr. Dana Wong (Enzyme Applications Team Lead, IFF, UCD Alum) & Dr. Jaclyn DeMartini (Applications Research Group Lead, IFF, UCD Alum)
• Feb. 2 – "Drug Discovery and Development Parallels Career Development", Dr. Bindoh Desilva (Senior Vice President, Bioanalytical Development and Biomarker Strategy, Ultragenyx)
• Feb. 9 – **POSTPONED to April 12** (DEB294/ECH294 students will be assigned a video via Canvas) - "Phase Appropriate Development of Small Molecules: From Discovery to First in Human Studies", Dr. Marcus Deloney (DEB Alum, Research Scientist, Formulations and Process Development, Gilead Sciences)
• Feb. 16 – "From Lab Mice to Clinical Science: My Path So Far and What I've Learned", Dr. Allison Hsia (DEB Alum, Lead Clinical Scientist, Genentech) (Zoom)
• Feb. 23 – "Success From the Soil: SynBio to Ag Sustainability", Dr. Tamera Meragelman (Senior Director of Research, Sound Agriculture)
• Mar. 1 – "Establishing Cell-Free Synthetic Biology for People and Planet Health", Prof. Michael Jewett (Bioengineering, Stanford)
• Mar. 8 – "Eureka Moment: Navigating Paths Forward at the Organizational and Personal Levels", Dr. Pei Wang (Eureka Therapeutics, Inc.)
• Mar. 15 – "SCiFi Foods-Progress Towards Commercialization of Cultivated Beef", Dr. Alexi Goranov (Head of Research and Development, SCiFi Foods)

Fall Quarter 2023 Seminar Schedule

• Oct 6 – “From an Academic Lab to the Cath Lab: My Journey to Product Management”, Debika Mitra, PhD (DEB Alum, Sr. Product Manager, Abbott)
• Oct 13 – “Spotlight on Breakthrough Medicine at BioMarin”, Robert Bottome (VP Global Supply Chain, Biomarin)
• Oct 20 – “Delivering Affordable Insulin 'Grown' in Plants”, Ilya Vensky (Co-Founder and CEO, HelicoBio) (Zoom)
• Oct 27 – “Learn to Make a Difference with Your Science: Innovation and Entrepreneurship Opportunities at UCD”, Niki Peterson (Senior Program Manager, UC Davis Institute for Innovation and Entrepreneurship)
• Nov 3 – “From Basic Research to Drug Development: Lessons Learned from a Scholar to an Entrepreneur”, Xiao-Jing Wang, MD/PhD (Founder, Allander Biotechnologies, LLC)
• Nov 10 – Veteran's Day Holiday 
• Nov 17 – “Evolving Our Food System with Cultivated Meat”, Bianca Le, PhD (Technical Affairs and Growth Principal, Mission Barns)
• Nov 24 – Thanksgiving Holiday
• Dec 1 – Cancelled by speaker - course participants assigned a make-up video.
• Dec 8 – “Beyond the Bench: Biotech Industry Jobs Outside of R&D,” Jenna Gallegos, PhD (DEB Alum, Director of Scientific Marketing, Samba Scientific) (Zoom)

Spring Quarter 2023 Seminar Schedule

• Apr 7 – “My Bioprocessing Journey through the Lifecycle of Biologics: From Concept to Delivering Drugs to Patients” Minni Aswath, MS, (Director, Purification Process Development, Bionova Scientific)
• Apr 14 – “Gilead Research: Success through Synergy”, Anna Marie Tuazon, PhD, MBA (DEB Alum, Associate Director, Gilead Sciences)
• Apr 21 – “Exploring Self-Forming RNA/Protein Nanoparticles for Crop Protection; and Implications as Biopharmaceuticals”, Todd Hauser (Founder & CEO, Trillium Ag)
• Apr 28 – “Late-Stage Process Development in Small Biotech”, Jasmine Corbin, PhD (DEB Alum, Senior Scientist, Allakos Inc.)
• May 5 – “Both your Biological Focus and Technical Skills can Create a Path Forward. My Journey from an Academic Training in Cancer Biology to Developing NGS Tools and Now Bringing Both Together”, Ilona Holcomb, PhD (UC Davis Alum, Director, ImpriMed Inc.)
• May 12– “My Career Path: From Graduate School to Work on the Development of Muscle-Directed Therapeutics”, Darren Hwee, PhD (DEB Alum, Senior Director, Cytokinetics)
• May 19 – “Microbial Community Perturbations and Team Science at a National Lab”, Dawn Chiniquy, PhD (DEB Alum, Research Scientist, Lawrence Berkeley National Lab)
• May 26 – “Green Vaccine (Plant-based Recombinant Vaccine): From Lab to Market”, Eun-Jun Sohn, PhD (CEO, BioApplications Inc.) (Zoom)
• June 2 – “Evaluating the Human Health Effects of Pesticides: My Journey to the Federal Government”, Patrick Rogers, PhD (DEB Alum, Toxicologist, Health Effects Division, US Environmental Protection Agency)

Winter Quarter 2023 Seminar Schedule

• Jan 13 – “Applications of Plant Sciences in the Biotech Industry: Using your Degree to Advance Sustainable Agriculture”, Elizabeth Henry, PhD (UCD Alum, Sr. Scientist, Pro Farm Group)
• Jan 20 – “Industrial Biotechnology at a Global Scale”, James Broering, PhD (Research Manager, Microbe Analytics & Automation, Novozyme’s, Inc.)
• Jan 27 – “Institute for Innovation and Entrepreneurship Programs Review”, Niki Peterson (Senior Program Manager, Mike and Renee Child Institute for Innovation and Entrepreneurship)
• Feb 3 – “A Glimpse into My Journey as a Metabolic Engineer”, Shuchi Desai, PhD (DEB Alum, Principal Scientist, Cardinal Biocraft)
• Feb 10 – “The Road I’m On, the Steps I’ve Taken. Everything Counts as Experience”, Shannon Ceballos, PhD (DEB Alum, Precision Fermentation Scientist, TurtleTree)
• Feb 17 – “A Career in Fermentation R&D: From Large Corporations to Small Start-Ups”, Amanda Hildebrand, PhD (DEB Alum, Director of Fermentation, Willow Biosciences)
• Feb 24 – “Exploring Career Opportunities in the Drug Substance Industry”, John Thorup, (Senior Manager, Engineering, Genentech)
• Mar 3 – “From Pharma to Cell Ag: Building a Career in the Biotech Industry”, Vanessa Small, PhD (Founder and CEO, Alcheme Bio) (Zoom)
• Mar 10 – “Scaling Fermentation to Opposite Extremes: Precision and its Sacrifice under the Dueling Quests for Design Space in Lab and Tank Volume in Plant”, Gian Oddone, PhD (DEB Alum, Independent Consultant, Biolucid LLC)
• Mar 17 – “My Journey from Metabolic Engineering to Early Drug Discovery”, Nicole Nozzi Cooper, PhD (DEB Alum, Scientific Leader-Protein Sciences, GSK Pharma GmbH)

Fall Quarter 2022 Seminar Schedule

• Sep 23 – “How to Translate your Research and Ideas into a Startup”, Mike Lemcke (Associate Director, UC Davis Venture Catalyst)
• Sep 30 – “Structure Study and Downstream Recovery for Bispecific Antibodies”, Ambrose Williams, PhD (DEB Alum, Senior Scientist and Team Lead, Genentech)
• Oct 7 – “Forging a Novel Career Path: From PhD to BD (Business Development)”, Elizabeth Edmiston, PhD (DEB Alum, Director of Operations, Foundery Innovations)
• Oct 14 – “Drug Development for Large Molecule Therapeutics”, Danielle Mandikian, PhD (UC Davis BMB Alum, Senior Scientist, Genentech)
• Oct 21 – “Molecularizing the Science of Plasma to Therapeutically Target Diseases of Aging”, Viktoria Kheifets, PhD (Senior Vice President, Alkahest, Inc.) (Zoom)
• Oct 28 – pre-recorded biotech seminar will be assigned for enrolled students
• Nov 4 – – “Probing and Measuring Biology on the Mesoscale”, Shawn Douglas, PhD (Assistant Professor, Cellular and Molecular Pharmacology, UCSF)
• Nov 11 – Veteran’s Day Holiday
• Nov 18 – “Sustainability and Industrial Biotech”, Victoria Huang (Applications Scientist, IFF) and Jeffrey Chen, (Technical Project Manager, IFF)
• Nov 25 – Thanksgiving Holiday
• Dec 2 – Cancelled/rescheduled due to illness

Spring Quarter 2022 Seminar Schedule

• Apr 1 – “Advances in Early Cancer Detection”, Maggie Louie, PhD (Vice President, Biology, Earli Inc.)
• Apr 8 – “Development of a SARS-CoV-2 Spike-RBD Subunit Antigen Vaccine Expressed in the Unique Filamentous Fungus C1 Production Platform”, Yakir Ophir, PhD (Head, Lab of Environmental Microbiology and Biotechnology, Department of Biotechnology, Israel Institute for Biological Research (IIBR) and Visiting Scientist, McDonald-Nandi Lab, UC Davis)
• Apr 15 – “Harnessing the Power of Algae for a Greener Future”, Anna Case, PhD (DEB Alum, Scientist II, Viridos) (Zoom)
• Apr 22 – “Pharmaceutical Data Management”, Janssen/Johnson & Johnson Presenters
• Apr 29 – pre-recorded biotech seminar will be assigned for enrolled students
• May 6 – “Galy: Creating New Frontiers in Cell-Based Agriculture”, Prince Zogli, PhD, MBA (Senior Scientist, GALY)
• May 13 – “Enabling Biotechnology Through Contract Research, Development, and Manufacturing”, Zane Starkewolfe, PhD (DEB Alum, Director of Corporate Development, WuXi Biologics)
• May 20 – “PRDM2 as a Druggable Target in Lung Cancer”, Brad Niles, PhD (DEB Alum, CEO, ARIZ Precision Medicine)
• May 27 – “Safety Assessments of Newly Expressed Proteins in Genetically Engineered Crops”, Lucas McKinnon, PhD (DEB Alum, Protein Scientist, Bayer Crop Science)

Winter Quarter 2022 Seminar Schedule

• Jan 7 – “What is Intellectual Property?”, Robin Stears, PhD, MBA (Director, Business Development and Licensing, UC Davis InnovationAccess) (Zoom)
• Jan 14 – “From Bench to Product Management”, Amir Bolandparvaz, PhD, MBA (DEB Alum, Product Manager, Thermo Fisher Scientific) (Zoom)
• Jan 21 – “Applications of Data Science and Machine Learning in Omics Data Analysis and Synthetic Biology”, Dmitry Grapov, PhD (DEB Alum, Director of Data Science, Amyris and Director of Data Science and Engineering, Creative Data Solutions) (Zoom)
• Jan 28 – “The GOOD Meat Journey Towards the First Ever Commercial Launch of Cultivated Meat”, Vitor Espirito Santo, PhD (Director of Cellular Agriculture, Eat Just, Inc.) (Zoom)
• Feb 4 – “Experimental and Computational Platforms for High-throughput Antimicrobial Drug Discovery”, Prof. Anand Ramasubramanian, PhD (Professor, San Jose State University) (Zoom)
• Feb 11 – “Creating Consumer Biomaterials: Bolt Threads, from Microsilk to Mylo”, David Breslauer, PhD (Co-founder and Chief Science Officer, Bolt Threads) (Zoom)
• Feb 18 – "Navigating PhD", Alexey Tomilov, PhD (President and CEO, Bindkin Bio, LLC) 
• Feb 25 – “Microbe and Microbiome Research at Novozymes”, Panel: Megan Cheneaux, Dan Lasko, PhD, Joanne Liu, PhD, and Laura Vann, PhD (Novozymes) (Zoom)
• Mar 4 – “The Role of Regulatory Affairs in Drug Development”, Angela Monterrubio, PhD (DEB Alum, QED Therapeutics)
• Mar 11 – “From Academia to Industry—My Path Through the SMDP Biotech Scholars Program”, David Olivos, PhD (DEB Alum, Senior Scientist, AbbVie)

Fall Quarter 2021 Seminar Schedule

• Sept 24 – “Ginkgo Bioworks: Making Biology Easier to Engineer”, Dr. Gabriel Rodriguez (DEB Alum, Senior Organism Engineer, Ginkgo Bioworks) (Zoom)​​
• Oct 1 – “How to Translate your Research and Ideas into a Startup”, Mike Lemcke (Associate Director, New Venture Resources, Venture Catalyst, UC Davis)
• Oct 8 – “BCD Bioscience, a Fiber Innovation Healthcare Company”, Dr. Angela Marcobal (Principal Scientist, BCD Bioscience)
• Oct 15 – “Advances in Liquid Biopsy Technologies and Applications”, Dr.Stephen Fairclough (Director, Technology, Guardant Health) **(Note: speaker change - seminar will be in-person at 1022 Green Hall)**
• Oct 22 – “Enabling Epigenetics in the Clinic”, Dr. Jesse Lopez (DEB Alum, Services Research Scientist, Active Motif)
• Oct 29 – “Absci: Changing the World One Protein at a Time” Dr. Ben Golomb (DEB Alum, Scientist II, Strain Construction, ABSCI) and Dr. Shane Reynolds (Scientist I, Purification, Absci)
• Nov 5 – “Fulfill the Promises of Genome Editing Technologies”, Dr. Eric Zheng (DEB Alum, Associate Director of Gene Editing, Mammoth Biosciences”
• Nov 12 – pre-recorded biotech seminar will be assigned for enrolled students
• Nov 19 – “The Bright Biotech Future in IFF”, Dr. Pauline Teunissen (Global Applications Leader, Grain Processing, International Flavors & Fragrances) & Rudo Nyachoto (Process Operations Manager, Pilot Plant, International Flavors & Fragrances)
• Nov 26 – Thanksgiving Holiday
• Dec 3 – “From R&D to Clinical: Becoming a MVP in a GMP World”, Dr. Nicole Nunez (DEB Alum, Regulatory Scientist II, Eureka Therapeutics, Inc.) (Zoom)

Spring Quarter 2021 Seminar Schedule

Note: All seminars were held via Zoom due to pandemic closures.

• April 9 - "Validating New Ag Technology for Crop Nutrient Use Efficiency and On-Demand Plant Breeding", Dr. Shawn Stricklin (Data Platform Lead, Sound Agriculture)
• April 16 - " The Entrepreneur's Journey from Davis to Asia!", Kirin Tsuei, MS, RD (Co-founder, CTO, Sophie’s BioNutrients)
• April 23 - "Microbes on the Mind: From Graduate School to Starting the Microbiome Therapeutics Company Holobiome", Dr. Phil Strandwitz (Co-founder and CEO, Holobiome, Inc.)
• April 30 - "Vertical Pharming; The Future of Plants with Purpose", Jake Eisenberg (Director, B2B Development, OnePointOne)
• May 7 – "Oral Delivery of Therapeutic Proteins Bioencapsulated in Plant Cells: Preclinical and Clinical Advances", Dr. Imran Khan (Assistant Project Scientist, McDonald-Nandi Lab, UC Davis)
• May 14 - "The Plant Age: Materials for the Future", Prof. Oded Shoseyov (Plant Molecular Biology and Nano Biotechnology - Faculty of Agriculture, Food and Environment, The Hebrew University of Jerusalem)
• May 21 - "Biomarker Operations: Making Personalized Healthcare a Reality", Dr. Allison Hsia (DEB Alum, Biomarker Operations Project Manager, Genentech) 
• May 28 - "Bioengineering Silk Proteins for New Utility", Distinguished Prof. David Kaplan (Biomedical Engineering, Tufts University)

Winter Quarter 2021 Seminar Schedule

Note: All seminars were held via Zoom due to pandemic closures.