About Us
Principal Investigator
Claudia Schmidt-Dannert
schmi232@umn.edu
Dr. Claudia Schmidt-Dannert is a Distinguished McKnight Professor and Kirkwood Chair of Biochemistry in the Department of Biochemistry, Molecular Biology and Biophysics. She is also the Director of the BioTechnology Institute at the University of Minnesota.
She completed her B.S. and M.S. in Biochemistry and Genetics at the TU Braunschweig and performed her PhD research at the National Research Center for Biotechnology (GBF, now Helmholtz Centre for Infection Research) in Braunschweig (1994). She then moved to the University of Stuttgart, and after a brief postdoctoral time, led he Molecular Biotechnology Group in the Institute of Technical Biochemistry as “Habilitant”. In 1998, she received a habilitation-fellowship from the German Science Foundation for her research proposal on in vitro pathway evolution and with this project, joined 2018 Chemistry Nobel Laureate Prof. Frances Arnold’s group at the California Institute of Technology to carry out her research on “molecular breeding of pathways” using carotenoid biosynthesis as a model system. In 2000, she joined the faculty at the University of Minnesota.
Lab Members
Francois Gaascht
Francois obtained his BSc and MSc at the University of Strasbourg (France) and completed his PhD at the Laboratoire de Biologie Moléculaire et Cellulaire du Cancer (Luxembourg) in the framework of the European RedCat Project. As Marie Curie Fellow, his research project focused on the discovery and the elucidation of the mode of action of several natural and natural-based products as anticancer drugs. After acquisition of new skills in natural products isolation and structure elucidation at the Fundacíon MEDINA (Granada, Spain), he joined the Schmidt-Dannert lab in October 2016 as Postdoctoral Research Associate.
Sunyoung Kang
Sun-young Kang (SUN) is a Postdoctoral Research Associate who joined the Schmidt-Dannert lab in March 2018. She received her Ph.D. in Pharmacy at the Chungbuk National University (Korea). Also, she worked as a graduate research assistant at the Korea Research Institute of Bioscience and Biotechnology (Korea). Her research focuses on increasing the secretion of scaffold protein fabricated by bacterial host. She is also interested in a synthetic biology approach for optimizing a biological system for the biosynthesis of natural products.
Kelly Wallin
Kelly is a graduate student in the BMBB program. She received B.S. degrees in Biochemistry and Botany from the University of Wisconsin-Madison and joined the Schmidt-Dannert lab in February 2016. Her research focuses on utilizing microcompartments for biotechnology applications, including the development of more efficient methods for biocatalysis.
Ruijie Zhang
Ruijie obtained her B. Sc. at the Zhengzhou University (China) and completed her PhD at the Chinese Academy of Sciences in Biochemistry and Molecular Biology. Her research has primarily focused on metabolic engineering and the identification of enzymes involved in sterol catabolism for the production of steroid metabolites. She joined the Schmidt-Dannert lab in July 2019. Her current research objective is the creation of mechanically robust and tough materials as platforms for biotechnological applications.
Eliana Pena
Eliana Pena is a graduate student in the BMBB program. She received her B.S. and M.S. in Biochemistry at Texas State University and joined the Schmidt-Dannert lab in March 2021. Her research interests are in engineering and developing novel in-vitro biocatalytic strategies for the production of natural products and therapeutic agents. In her free time, Eliana enjoys playing D&D, hiking, rock climbing, identifying plants and mushrooms in nature, cooking, and promoting and advocating for diversity in STEM.
Gabriela Xavier Schneider
Lab Alumni
The Schmidt-Dannert lab has developed a considerable network of alumni all over the world with employment in industry and academica. Students and postdoctoral scholars readily find positions in the biotechnology industry, others have obtained faculty positions. Many alumni are now in senior and leadership position at companies and several are tenure-track or tenured faculty members.
Graduate Students
Benjamin Hanson | MS, BMBB | 2015-18 | Process Development Associate, Broad Institute, MA |
Christopher Flynn | PhD, BMBB | 2011-16 | Senior Scientist, Exon Mobile, NY |
Stephen Michel | MS, MicE | 2013-15 | Bioinformatician, U of M Clinics |
Sarah Bloch | PhD, BMBB | 2009-14 | Scientific Analyst at Morrison & Foerster LLP |
Grayson Wawrzyn | PhD, BMBB | 2009-13 | Senior Manager, Synthetic Biology Programs at Berkeley Lights, Inc. |
Ilya Tikh | PhD, BMBB | 2008-13 | Senior Scientist – Synthetic and Molecular Biology at Pfizer |
Erik Holtzapple | PhD, BMBB | 2003-08 | Senior Scientist, Nucellis, San Diego |
Sean Agger | PhD, BMBB | 2003-08 | Director Clinical Lab, Gunderson Healthcare System, La Crosse, WI |
Erin Marasco | PhD, BMBB | 2002-07 | Technical Lead Sweetners, Cargill, Twin Cities |
Kevin Watts | PhD, BMBB | 2002-06 | Global Acquaculture Portfolio Manager, Cargill, Twin Cities |
Jessica Williams | MS, MicE | 2004-06 | Senior Scientist, Center for Drug Design, U of M |
Anuj Bhartija | MS, MicE | 2001-03 | Director & Founder, Carbochon, Mumbai, India |
Postdoctoral Scholars
|
Min-Ju Seo |
Postdoc |
2019-21 |
TBA |
|
Anaya Pokhrel |
Postdoc |
2019-22 |
TBA |
|
Sara Bratsch |
Postdoc |
2019-21 |
Plant Pathologist, Minnesota State Department |
|
Maureen Quin |
Research Assistant Prof. |
2010-19 |
Manager, Beckman Coulter, MN |
|
Seung-Oh Seo |
Postdoc |
2017-19 |
Assistant Prof., Catholic University, Korea |
|
Guoqiang Zhang |
Postdoc |
2015-18 |
Associate Prof., Jiangnan University, China |
|
Hui Chen |
Postdoc |
2017-18 |
Postdoc, University of Boulder, CO |
|
Sarah Perdue |
Postdoc |
2013-15 |
Director of Communications, Dept. Physics, UW Madison |
|
Alexander Kolb |
Postdoc |
2013-15 |
Senior Scientist, Douglas Scientific, MN |
|
James Ellinger |
Postdoc |
2012-14 |
Assistant Professor, University of Tokyo |
|
Mark Held |
Postdoc |
2011-14 |
Director Strain Engineering, Air Protein, Berkeley, CA |
|
Soo-Jin Yeom |
Postdoc |
2010-12 |
Professor, Chonnam National University, South Korea |
|
David Babson |
Postdoc |
2010-12 |
Program Director, DOE Advanced Projects Research Agency – Energy, Washington, DC |
|
Swati Choudhary |
Research Associate |
2009-12 |
Head of Strain Engineering, Shiru, San Francisco |
|
Jacob Vick |
Postdoc |
2008-11 |
Senior Scientist III, Conagen, MA |
|
Poonam Srivastava |
Postdoc |
2010-11 |
Scientist, Modern Meadow, New Jersey |
|
Sreedhar Reddy |
Postdoc |
2009-10 |
Scientist, Merck, India |
|
Fernando Lopez-Gallego |
Postdoc |
2007-10 |
Professor, Biocatalysis, CIC biomaGUNE, Spain |
|
Ethan Johnson |
Research Associate |
2005-10 |
Passed away in a hit-and-run car accident |
|
Alexander Pisarchik |
Postdoc |
2004-07 |
Program Director, Alcamena Stem Cell Therapeutics, MD |
|
Pyung Cheon Lee |
Research Associate |
2001-07 |
Professor, Molecular Synthetic Biology Lab, Ajou University, Seoul, Korea |
|
Benjamin Mijts |
Postdoc |
2002-06 |
Senior Director, Inscripta, San Francisco |
|
Seok Joon Kwon |
Postdoc |
2002-04 |
Senior Research Scientist, Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, NY |
|
Ralf Petri |
Postdoc |
2002-04 |
Scientific Coordinator, Max-Planck Institute for Aging, Cologne, Germany |
|
Arjo De Beoer |
Postdoc |
2001-03 |
Senior Scientist Life Science Fujifilm manufacturing, Netherlands |
|
Priscilla Dombek |
Postdoc |
2001-03 |
K-12 Teacher |
|
Abu Zafar Momen |
2000-02 |
Scientist, RIKEN, Yokohama, Japan |