sdoelsnitz

Dr. Simon d’Oelsnitz is a Synthetic Biology Fellow in the Systems Biology Department at Harvard Medical School. He leads a group within the Synthetic Biology HIVE focused on the development and application of small molecule-responsive biosensors. Dr. d’Oelsnitz received his B.S. in Pharmacology from Stony Brook University, and then went on to complete his PhD in Molecular Biology at the University of Texas at Austin where he was supervised by Profs. Andy Elllington, a pioneer in directed evolution, and Hal Alper, a renowned leader in metabolic engineering. There, Simon developed novel genetic selection systems to rapidly customize the chemical specificity of transcription factor-based biosensors for various high-value molecules, including terpenes and alkaloids. He has also developed a suite of software tools for the discovery, characterization, and documentation of chemical-responsive transcription factors. In 2022, Simon worked as a visiting researcher at the National Institute of Standards and Technology, where he used massively parallel reporter assays to simultaneously measure the performance of >100,000 biosensor variants. In 2023, Simon joined Harvard Medical School as a Synthetic Biology Fellow, where he is continuing to expand the palette of available biosensors for pharmaceuticals, hormones, metabolites, and environmental pollutants. Simon is also a project co-lead for the Datasets Initiative within Align to Innovate, which aims to collect large genotype-phenotype datasets in support of the predictive engineering of proteins.

February 2025