Innovative Genomics Foundation Board
Dr. Jennifer Doudna
Jennifer Doudna received her Ph.D. in biological chemistry and molecular pharmacology from Harvard University, and the held fellowships at Massachusetts General Hospital in molecular biology and at Harvard in genetics. She was also a postdoctoral scholar at the University of Boulder where she worked with Dr. Thomas Cech. Dr. Doudna became an assistant professor at Yale University and later came to the University of California at Berkeley as a professor of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology and became a Howard Hughes investigator in 1997. Dr. Doudna co-founded the Innovative Genomics Institute in 2014.
Dr. Doudna’s early work focused on the structure and activity of RNA enzymes, known as ribozymes. At Berkeley, she began her studies into CRISPR/Cas gene editing systems, earning a Nobel prize for these groundbreaking studies in 2020 along with her collaborator Dr. Emmanuelle Charpentier. Dr. Doudna’s current research focus is the discovery of new CRISPR/Cas systems and novel delivery systems.
Dr. Doudna has co-founded several biotechnology companies including Caribou Biosciences, Editas Medicine, Mammoth Biosciences, Intellia Therapeutics, Scribe Therapeutics and others. Dr. Doudna also serves on numerous scientific advisory boards and is the chief scientific advisor for Sixth Street Partners.
Dr. Bradley Ringeisen
Brad Ringeisen received his Ph.D. from the University of Wisconsin-Madison, and moved to the U.S. Naval Research Laboratory, becoming the head of the Bioenergy and Biofabrication Section. Dr. Ringeisen later moved to DARPA as the Director of the Biological Technologies Office. Dr. Ringeisen’s doctorate was awarded in the field of physics, and he is a pioneer in the field of live cell printing. While at DARPA, his office oversaw projects involved in research into genome editing, epigenetics, neurotechnology, food security and biomanufacturing, as well as diagnostics and therapeutics development.
Dr. Ringeisen is the Executive Director of the Innovative Genomics Institute at the University of California. Brad’s primary role is to guide IGI’s scientific and development strategy, but his duties also include promoting entrepreneurship, working with biotech investors, donor outreach and development, scientific project development and team building, and engaging with the IGI’s Governance and Scientific Advisory Boards.
Dr. Dave Savage
Dave is a Professor in the Department of Molecular & Cell Biology at the University of California, Berkeley and an Investigator in the Howard Hughes Medical Institute. Dave was born and raised in rural Iowa. He continues to help manage his family’s farm, which was recognized in 2010 as an Iowa Heritage Farm. Dave attended Gustavus Adolphus College, where he earned a B.A. in Chemistry and minored in Computer Science. He received his Ph.D. in 2007 from UCSF for his work on membrane protein structure determination with Robert Stroud. From 2007 to 2011, Dave was a Life Sciences Research Foundation fellow with Pamela Silver in the Department of Systems Biology at Harvard Medical School.
Research in the Savage Lab focuses on understanding and engineering two of the most compelling biochemical systems found in nature: CO2 fixation and genome editing enzyme machineries. Ultimately, this works seeks to develop enabling genome editing technology and apply it for improving photosynthetic CO2 assimilation in plants. For this work, Dave’s research has been recognized with the DOE Early Career Program Award, an NIH Director’s New Innovator Award, an Alfred P. Sloan Research Fellowship, and he was selected for the 2018 “Future of Biochemistry” issue by ACS-Biochemistry. Dave is also an enthusiastic supporter of science capacity building and translation, and he is a co-creator of the Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory course on synthetic biology, a founding member of the Engineering Biology Research Consortium, co-creator of the African Plant Breeding Academy CRISPR Course and a co-founder of Scribe Therapeutics.