Principal Investigator
 |
Karen McDonald, PhD
Professor, Dept. Chemical Engineering and Materials Science Faculty Director, UC Davis ADVANCE Program |
University of California, Davis One Shields Avenue Davis, CA 95616 kamcdonald@ucdavis.edu |
Postdoctoral Researcher
 |
Kalimuthu Karuppanan, PhD | Kalimuthu Karuppanan completed his PhD in Biotechnology in 2013 from Department of Molecular Microbiology, School of Biotechnology, Madurai Kamaraj University, India. Kalimuthu’s efforts have focused on establishing tobacco plant cell culture, optimization of co-cultivation conditions and bioreactor strategies to produce monoclonal antibodies against Ebola, as well as developing and optimization of downstream processing for recombinant protein purification and characterization. In addition, he is collaboratively working with other therapeutic proteins (Anthrax decoy protein and Alpha-1 antitrypsin) transiently produced from tobacco plants. As a postdoctoral researcher he is supervising the current research projects and mentoring students in McDonald research group. |
Graduate Students
 |
Salem Alkanaimsh | Salem received his B.S in Chemical Engineering in 2009 from Kuwait University. His current research focuses on transient expression for the production butyrylcholinesterase protein, a biopharmaceutical agent that serves as an organophosphate bioscavenger, in Nicotiana benthamiana plants. He also focuses on purification and characterization of the recombinant plant-based butyrylcholinesterase enzyme. |
 |
Elizabeth Anthony | Liz graduated from Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute in 2011 with a B.S. degree in Chemical Engineering. At RPI she developed strong interests in renewable energy and biotechnology. In the McDonald lab, she has been able to combine both of these interests with her research project focused on decreasing the overall production costs of cellulosic biofuels through the development of a plant-based expression system for the required enzymes.
During her time as UC Davis, she also been a National Science Foundation GK12 RESOURCE fellow, for which she developed and taught renewable energy curriculum to 6th grade classrooms, and an Emerging Leaders in Policy and Public Service Fellow, for which she worked at the Center for Energy Efficiency and Renewable Technology analyzing and communicating data to stakeholders for the California 2030 Low Carbon Grid Study. |
 |
Jasmine Corbin | Jasmine received her B.S. in Chemical Engineering with a biochemical emphasis from USC in 2013. Her graduate research focuses on both upstream and downstream process development for a transgenic rice cell suspension culture for the production of butyrylcholinesterase, a therapeutic enzyme for the treatment of organophosphorus nerve agent exposure. |
 |
Sifti Duhra-Gill | Sifti received her Bachelor of Engineering in Biotechnology from Manipal Institute of Technology, Manipal, India. Her current research focuses on the production and purification of chimeric protein against anthrax toxin using a transient expression system in Nicotiana benthamiana plants. |
 |
Ingrid Leth | [BIO BLURB] |
 |
Somen Nandi | [BIO BLURB] |
 |
David Silberstein | David earned his Bachelor of Science degree in Chemical Engineering with a biomolecular focus from UCLA in 2012. He then worked as a validation engineer for PSC Biotech in Los Angeles before joining the McDonald group, completing projects at Baxter Bioscience and Neutrogena Corporation. His current research is in optimizing the expression and purification of a human therapeutic protein, Alpha-1-antitrypsin, using a transient expression system in Nicotiana benthamiana. |
 |
Sara Sukenik | Sara received her B.S.E. in Chemical and Biological Engineering from Princeton University. Prior to joining the McDonald lab, Sara worked at Merck & Co., performing viral vaccine process development research. In her graduate research, she is developing a platform for rapid production of novel therapeutic proteins using transient expression in Nicotiana benthamiana plant cell suspension cultures. |
 |
Tiffany Tu | Tiffany Tu is a Masters student in the Chemical Engineering and Materials Science department with an interest in renewable, sustainable energies. Prior to her Masters, she received her B.S in Chemical Engineering and minor in Materials Science from University of California, Irvine. Her current research focuses on simulating and comparing early environmental and economical aspects of fungal, transgenic, and transient production of cellulase enzymes in scale-up, conceptual plant designs with SuperPro Designer (Intelligen, Inc). |
Undergraduate Students
 |
Zachary Kyser | Zack Kyser is a Chemical Engineering undergraduate student at UC Davis. He started in lab at the beginning of May 2015, working on the production of butyrylcholinesterase from rice cell lines under the mentorship of Jasmine Corbin. |
 |
Benjamin Chang | Ben is a chemical engineering undergraduate student at UC Davis. He started in the lab in September 2016 and his undergraduate research focuses on the purification process of butyrylcholinesterase from rice cell lines. |
Former Members (Alumni)
| Name | Title | Currently at |
| Elizabeth Anthony | ||
| Ingrid Leth | ||
| SangKyu Jung | Graduate student | Postdoc, UPenn |
| Ben Lindenmuth | Graduate student | Bayer HealthCare, Berkeley, CA |
| Ting-Kuo Huang | Graduate student | Genentech, SSF, CA |
| Michael Plesha | Graduate student | Bayer CropScience, Sacramento, CA |
| Corey Dodge | Graduate student | Verenium, now part of BASF, San Diego, CA |
| Kittipong Rattanaporn (Nat) | Graduate student | Kasetsart University, Thailand |
| Lucas Arzola | Graduate student | UC Davis, Director of the Engineering Student Startup Center
CEO, Inserogen, Inc. CEO, Betaversity, Inc. |
| Nathaniel Kingsbury | Graduate student | |
| Bryce Hashimoto | Graduate student | |
| Grace Bai | Undergraduate student | |
| Debika Mitra | Undergraduate student | |
| Jeffrey Upton | Undergraduate student | |
| Allen Reed | Undergraduate student | |
| Derrick Hicks | Undergraduate student | |
| Alexandra Moskaluk | Undergraduate student | |
Past visiting scholars
| Alexandra (Alex) Ramirez Celis | Universidad Autonoma de Aguascalientes |
| Oscar A. Ortega-Rivera | Universidad Autonoma de Aguascalientes |