Wayne Mitchell

Biography

 Dr. Mitchell’s interests include pure science (Synthetic Biology, Omics, Infectious Disease), the interface of laboratory and information sciences (Bioinformatics, and Informatics), and science policy (Bio-enterprise, public, private and mixed). He was an early recruit to the genomics revolution, participating in the 11th and 16th bacterial genome projects (Chlamydia trachomatis and C. pneumonia). Subsequent comparative genomic discoveries, led him to found Tao Biosciences, a 13 FTE San Francisco “nano-cap” biotechnology company focused on the development of novel antibiotics on an integrated computational and experimental platform, the research paradigm he continues to champion. Recruited by A*STAR in 2003, Dr. Mitchell began his tenure in Singapore as a Senior Scientist at the Genome Institute of Singapore where, as a member of PanAsia SNP Consortium, he helped to create the first Asian-wide catalog of human genetic variation. He went on to join The Experimental Therapeutics Centre as Group Leader in Informatics and Bioinformatics. At ETC he designed and built an “Electronic Research Habitat”, an (almost) paperless research platform, and he was a member of the team that defined glycine decarboxylase as an important new metabolic oncogene. In Singapore he held a concurrent appointment as Associate Professor (adjunct) in the School of Computer Engineering, Nanyang Technological University. Since 2012 he is a bioinformatics and systems biologist in the synthetic biology group at Lanzatech, a biofuels and green chemistry start-up. Dr. Mitchell received his Ph.D. from the University of California, Berkeley, where he was University Fellow, and a MacArthur Foundation Breadth Fellow (“Diplomacy by Other Means: Bioweapons in the Age of Molecular Biology”). He holds bachelors honors degrees from Harvard (African History) and from University of Massachusetts (Biology). He subscribes to Zhuangzi's famous aphorism: 学海无涯 ("The Ocean of Learning has no Bounds").

Research Interest

 Genomics