Stephen Von Stetina
Hometown: Waynesboro, Virginia
I’m a: cell/development/evolutionary/synthetic biologist
My research: I am the lead Scientist in Kevin Esvelt's Sculpting Evolution Group. The umbrella under which the group works is to harness the power of evolution in the laboratory in order to engineer useful organisms and biomolecules in an efficient manner, and likely better than we could rationally design. My main focus is on local gene drives, using nematodes as a model to determine if the lab's mathematical models regarding what we've dubbed "daisy drives" work as expected. Our gene drives are driven by Crispr genome editing, and engineered organisms bias inheritance of the engineered elements when mating with wild type. However, unlike global gene drives, our daisy drives have limited "fuel", and once it runs out the biased inheritance no longer occurs. If left untouched, the population will eventually go back to wild type. However, if Jurassic Park taught us anything, it's that "Nature finds a way." We want to make sure that the safeguards we have proposed to keep a gene drive local work as expected, in the expected frequencies, so that eventually we can release modified organisms into a community that has determined that's what they want without perturbing the neighboring community that doesn't want modified organisms. If interested, I invite you to read more about our proposed work on our webpage (http://www.sculptingevolution.org) or feel free to comment on our work on Responsive Science (https://responsive.pubpub.org), a webpage that is engaging the community in Science.
What do you typically eat for breakfast? egg (fried or scrambled) with a carb (toast, cereal, waffle, pancake)
What is your favorite type of cuisine to cook? anything on the grill
What is your favorite snack or candy? yogurt
What is your favorite spice? basil
What is one food you absolutely dislike? seafood (if it comes from the sea, it's not for me!)
My 4 dream scientist dinner companions:
Sydney Brenner
Albert Einstein
Rita Levi-Montalcini
Barbara McClintock
