2022 LAGE Summit Speaker Bios
Dr. Liangxue Lai
Guangzhou Institutes of Biomedicine and Health, Chinese Academy of Sciences
As a principal investigator in the Guangzhou Institute of Biomedicine and Health Chinese Academy of Sciences, Dr. Lai’s lab is focusing on genetic modification of large animals, human and animal stem cells, and animal cloning.
Dr. Lai has published more than 150 peer reviewed papers in international journals including Science, PNAS, Nature Biotechnology, and Cell. In 2002, Dr. Lai and his team made the first knock-out pigs in the world by using nuclear transfer. As of now, his team has produced more than 100 kinds of genetically modified large animals including pigs, dogs, and rabbits with important applications in biomedicine and agriculture.
Dr. Lai earned his Ph.D. at the Northeast Agricultural University, followed by post-doctoral work at Changchun University of Agriculture and Animal Sciences. He was also a post-doctoral fellow at the University of Missouri-Columbia.
Dr. Chris Rogers
Precigen Exemplar
Dr. Chris Rogers is the CEO/CSO and co-founder of Precigen Exemplar. He received his Ph.D. in pharmacology from Vanderbilt University focusing on gene therapy. He then completed post-doctoral training at the University of Iowa where he and colleagues created the first knockout and knockin models of a human disease in a large animal species – cystic fibrosis in pigs.
This work led to the founding of Exemplar Genetics in 2008. The company is focused on the development and characterization of large animal models of human disease and providing housing, husbandry, and preclinical services for research using these models. At Precigen Exemplar, Dr. Rogers has generated models of cardiovascular disease, cancer, cardiac arrhythmia, muscular dystrophy, several neurological and neurodegenerative diseases, and polycystic kidney disease, among others. Precigen Exemplar is a wholly-owned subsidiary of Precigen, Inc.
Dr. Kiho Lee
University of Missouri
Dr. Kiho Lee graduated from Seoul National University with a bachelor's degree in animal sciences and earned master’s and doctoral degrees from Purdue University. He did postdoctoral training at the University of Missouri-Columbia.
While at the University of Missouri, he generated the first immune-deficient pigs that could support growth and proliferation of human-induced pluripotent stem cells. He is currently an associate professor in the Division of Animal Sciences at the University of Missouri. Dr. Lee’s lab currently focuses on designing genetically engineered large animal models for agriculture and biomedicine.
Dr. Charles R. Long
Texas A&M University
Dr. Charles R. Long is a professor in the Department of Veterinary Physiology and Pharmacology at the College of Veterinary Medicine & Biomedical Sciences at Texas A&M University. Dr. Long earned bachelor’s and Master of Science degrees from University of Missouri in animal science and his Ph.D. in veterinary animal science from the University of Massachusetts. He completed a post-doctoral training program at the Agricultural Research Service, United States Department of Agriculture in Beltsville, Maryland. He worked for 6 years in private industry to commercialize advanced reproductive technologies prior to joining the faculty at Texas A&M University in 2004.
Dr. Long has conducted research on the physiology of gametes and early embryos for over 30 years in academic, private industry, and government laboratories. Those studies have varied from nuclear reprogramming in cloned embryos, in vitro fertilization systems using sex sorted sperm, embryo cryobiology, cytoskeletal and nuclear abnormalities of in vitro-produced livestock embryos. His laboratory has investigated the role of epigenetic reprogramming during early bovine embryonic development, and the utilization of RNAi and genetic engineering approaches for altering gene expression of both endogenous and exogenous genes. The lab is currently investigating novel genetic engineering approaches to enhance meat production and disease resistance in livestock, develop platforms for production of vaccine antigens in milk, and produce biomedical models of economically important livestock and human diseases.
Dr. Michael Phelps
Washington State University
Dr. Michael Phelps is an assistant professor in the Department of Animal Sciences at Washington State University, where he helps direct the WSU Thorgaard Center for Salmonid Physiology and Genomics Research. He has a bachelor’s degree in cellular and marine biology from Western Washington University, a Ph.D. in environmental science from the University of Rhode Island, Department of Fisheries, Animal, and Veterinary Science and has postdoctoral experience in muscle stem cell biology and genome-editing technology from the University of Washington departments of Biological Structure and Pathology.
The Phelps laboratory studies the molecular physiology of aquatic organisms with special focus on the pathways regulating skeletal muscle growth in Pacific salmonids. His laboratory also develops genomics and genome editing technologies to improve aquaculture sustainability, wild salmon conservation, and viral gene therapies.
Dr. Michela Ciccarelli
Washington State University College of Veterinary Medicine
Dr. Michela Ciccarelli was born and raised in Italy where she graduated with a Doctor of Veterinary Medicine degree in 2012. After graduating, her passion for comparative reproduction brought her to seek a residency in theriogenology in the U.S.
She completed the residency and achieved a master’s degree in theriogenology in 2017. In 2018, she became a Diplomate of the American College of Theriogenologists and started the next part of her educational journey by pursuing a Ph.D. in molecular bioscience in Dr. Jon Oatley’s lab at Washington State University. She obtained her Ph.D. in 2020 and continued working in the same lab as a postdoctoral fellow for an additional year working on spermatogonial stem cells biology. In June 2021, she joined the WSU-College of Veterinary Medicine faculty as an assistant professor in comparative theriogenology.
Dr. Ina Dobrinski
University of Calgary
Dr. Ina Dobrinski, DVM, MVSc, Ph.D., Diplomate American College of Theriogenologists, is professor of reproductive biology in the faculty of Veterinary Medicine and the Cumming School of Medicine at the University of Calgary. She joined the University of Calgary in 2008 after 11 years at the University of Pennsylvania, where she was a professor of reproduction, the director of the Center for Animal Transgenesis and Germ Cell Research, and the Marion Dilley and Robert George Jones Chair in Reproduction. Research in the Dobrinski laboratory is focused on mammalian germline stem cell biology.
This lab was the first to establish germ cell transplantation in non-rodent models to transmit a genetic change introduced into germline stem cells to the next generation. The work enables generation of germline gene-edited non-rodent animal models. They also developed xenografting of testis tissue and cells as an accessible in vivo system to study germline stem cells and spermatogenesis. More recently, they established organotypic testicular organoids to investigate cell-cell interactions in the testis. These approaches allow controlled experimentation in donor species such as primates where experiments in whole animals would be logistically and ethically difficult.
Dr. Paul Thompson
Michigan State University
Dr. Paul B. Thompson holds the W.K. Kellogg Chair in Agricultural, Food and Community Ethics at Michigan State University, where he serves on the faculty in the departments of Philosophy, Community Sustainability and Agricultural, Food and Resource Economics. He received his Ph.D. in philosophy from the State University of New York at Stony Brook and has held posts at Texas A&M University and Purdue University.
Dr. Thompson’s research and teaching has focused on ethical and philosophical topics in food and agriculture. Thompson has served on advisory boards at the U.S. National Research Council, the U.S. National Academy of Engineering, Genome Canada, and for numerous academic journals, including Environmental Ethics and Agriculture and Human Values. His honors include fellowships from the Council on Foreign Relations, the Hastings Center, and Yale University. He was awarded the Richard P. Haynes Award for Lifetime Achievement by the Agriculture, Food and Human Values Association and is a two-time winner of the Agricultural & Applied Economics Association’s Award for Professional Excellence in Communication.
Dr. Andy Shan Jin
University of Portsmouth and Newcastle University
Dr. Andy Shan Jin is a lecturer in risk management on the faculty of business and law, University of Portsmouth and visiting researcher at the School of Natural and Environmental Sciences, Newcastle University. He received his Ph.D. in food and society from Newcastle University, with a thesis titled Synthetic biology applied in the agri-food sector: Understanding societal responses.
Dr. Jin has conducted research into understanding stakeholders’ responses to novel technologies applied to the agri-food sector, such as genetic modification, synthetic biology and precision agriculture techniques. He has published his research work in a few prestigious journals. Dr. Jin has also been extensively involved in transdisciplinary research projects funded by Biotechnology and Biological Sciences Research Council, the Science and Technology Facilities Council, and Horizon 2020 to facilitate the co-development of effective management strategies and policies of novel agri-food technologies.
Dr. Diane Wray-Cahen
U.S. Department of Agriculture
Dr. Diane Wray-Cahen is the senior advisor for Animal Health and Production, and Animal Products for the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) in the Office of the Chief Scientist (OCS), where she is on long-term detail from the USDA Foreign Agricultural Service (FAS). At OCS, she supports scientific prioritization and coordination across the department, informing policy and programmatic decisions within USDA and providing scientific advice and input. She also works to establish links between USDA and other government, academic, and industry organizations.
At FAS, she served as a senior science advisor for agricultural biotechnologies for over 10 years, focusing on scientific and regulatory developments and their potential impact on agricultural innovation and trade policy. She also coordinated and led efforts with like-minded countries to encourage informed and rational responses to new agricultural biotechnologies and to promote science-based and risk-proportionate regulatory approaches. Dr. Wray-Cahen has worked extensively with international colleagues on educational outreach and communication efforts regarding innovative agricultural technologies and associated issues. She currently leads efforts for the on-going series of international and regional workshops on regulatory approaches for animal biotechnology that has engaged researchers, breeders, regulators, and policy makers in more than 65 countries.
Prior to moving into the realm of science and trade policy, she spent over 16 years conducting swine and dairy cattle research in the United States and the United Kingdom. Dr. Wray-Cahen received her B.S. and Ph.D. in animal science from Cornell University.
Dr. Mike McGrew
Roslin Institute, University of Edinburgh
Dr. Mike McGrew is a senior lecturer at the Roslin Institute, part of the Royal Dick School of Veterinary Studies at the University of Edinburgh, United Kingdom. Dr. McGrew earned a bachelor of science degree from the University of Minnesota and a PhD in biochemistry from Boston University Medical School. He carried out postdoctoral training at the IBDM, Marseille France and at the Roslin Institute.
Studies using the chicken have made very significant contributions to understanding the development of vertebrates owing to the ease in manipulating the chicken embryo. The chick model system has become even more useful with the sequencing of the chicken genome and development of a robust method for transgenesis in the chicken. The McGrew laboratory works on a type of stem cell, the germ cell, which produces the sperm and eggs of birds. It was shown that migratory primordial germ cells from the chicken could be cultured in vitro for extended periods and used to generate transgenic chickens. His lab developed a serum-free culture system for chicken germ cells which allows these cells to be expanded indefinitely in vitro. The McGrew laboratory is developing methods to engineer precise changes into the genome of chicken to investigate susceptibility to avian influenza infection in poultry.
Dr. Kristin Whitworth
National Swine Resource and Research Center
Dr. Kristin Whitworth is the associate director of research activities for the National Swine Resource and Research Center (NSRRC) in the Division of Animal Sciences at the University of Missouri. She completed her B.S. in agriculture from Illinois State University and a M.S. and Ph.D. from the University of Missouri. Kristin focuses her research efforts on the use of gene editing tools such as CRISPR/Cas9 to create pig models for both disease resistance and biomedicine. In 2018, Kristin became the Associate Director of the NSRRC at the University of Missouri. The NSRRC is a National Institutes of Health (NIH) funded center established to develop swine models for the biomedical research community.
Dr. Adrienne Watson
Recombinetics
Dr. Adrienne Watson completed her Ph.D. in molecular, cellular, developmental biology and genetics at the University of Minnesota under the direction of Dr. David Largaespada where she utilized transposon systems to conduct forward genetic screens in mice to uncover novel cancer genes and generated several mouse models of NF1-associated tumors, elucidating novel genetic pathways, and candidates for targeted therapy.
After completing her postdoctoral studies at the University of Minnesota, she joined the St. Paul-based biotechnology company, Recombinetics, in 2013, where she leads the development swine models for preclinical studies. Her research focuses on applying gene-editing technology to develop swine models of human diseases with a focus on cancer and neurodegenerative diseases, as well as applying this technology for regenerative medicine applications. Dr. Watson has leveraged Recombinetics platform technology to launch Therillume, a company focused on using somatic cell gene editing in swine to bring precision medicine to brain tumors.
Christoph Bausch, PhD
SAB Biotherapeutics
Dr. Christoph Bausch is an experienced research scientist and executive who has led the successful discovery, development, and commercialization of platform technologies in the life sciences. Currently, he oversees Genetic Engineering, Drug Discovery, Product and CMC Development, manages collaborative research initiatives, and leads the SAB-185 (anti-SARS-CoV-2) program.
Prior to his work with SAB, Christoph structured strategic partnerships, vetted new technologies and streamlined R&D for multi-billion-dollar global biorefining leader POET, LLC. He also worked in both research and commercialization roles for Sigma-Aldrich, now MilliporeSigma.
A microbiologist by training, Christoph received his Ph.D. in microbiology at The Ohio State University; Columbus, Ohio, completed post-doctoral training at the Stowers Institute for Medical Research, Kansas City, Missouri, and earned an M.B.A. from St. Louis University, St. Louis, Missouri in addition to a B.A. in biology from the University of Nebraska-Lincoln, Lincoln, Nebraska.
Dr. Noelle E. Cockett, PhD
Utah State University
Dr. Noelle E. Cockett has built a distinguished career in sheep genomics research, maintaining an active research program even while serving in various leadership positions at Utah State University. Her research program has centered on identifying genetic markers associated with economically important traits in sheep, as well as advancing research on the sheep genome. Cockett and her colleagues published an article describing the sheep genome sequence in Science in 2014. Her current project focuses on the identification of genetic regions associated with entropion in newborn lambs. Cockett has served as the United States coordinator for sheep genome mapping since 1993 and is an active member of the International Sheep Genomics Consortium. She is also among the co-authors of Genome to Phenome: Improving Animal Health, Production, and Wellbeing — A New USDA Blueprint for Animal Genome Research 2018-2027.
Cockett began her tenure as Utah State University’s 16th president in January 2017. Prior that, she had served as USU’s executive vice president and provost, and as the university’s vice president for Extension, dean of the College of Agriculture and Natural Resources, and director of the Utah Agricultural Experiment Station.
After receiving her master’s and doctoral degrees in animal breeding and genetics from Oregon State University, Cockett spent five years as a research geneticist at the USDA — Agriculture Research Service U.S. Meat Animal Research Center in Clay Center, Nebraska. She joined USU in 1990 as a researcher and assistant professor in the Department of Animal, Dairy and Veterinary Sciences.
Bernadette Juarez, J.D.
U.S. Department of Agriculture
Bernadette Juarez was appointed deputy administrator for the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Biotechnology Regulatory Services in August 2019. In this role, she provides leadership and direction to ensure the safe development and introduction (importation, interstate movement, and field testing) of organisms developed using genetic engineering. Prior to this, Ms. Juarez served as the deputy administrator of the Animal Care Program and Director of Investigative and Enforcement Services, and as a trial attorney in USDA’s Office of the General Counsel.
Dr. Iuri Viotti Perisse
Utah State University
Dr. Iuri Viotti Perisse is a postdoctoral fellow in the Department of Animal, Dairy and Veterinary Sciences at Utah State University (USU). Dr. Viotti Perisse grew up in Itaperuna, a small town in the Rio de Janeiro state in Brazil. He started his career studying biochemistry at the Federal University of Vicosa (FUV) in 2009. Since his freshman year, Dr. Viotti Perisse was passionate about the construction of genes of interest for generating transgenic animals. He also studied biochemistry at the University of East London (2013-2015).
After receiving his bachelor of science degree in biochemistry from the FUV in 2016, he was accepted to begin a Ph.D. program at USU under the mentorship of Drs. Irina Polejaeva and Kenneth White. Dr. Viotti Perisse’s research was focused on the development of sheep models for cystic fibrosis, including two models carrying the most common mutations in U.S. patients. Furthermore, he has been involved in the generation of other animal models for genetic diseases including a novel sickle cell disease sheep. He also studies epigenetic reprogramming following somatic cell nuclear transfer.