Biotech Leader & Scientist

Key contributor to corporate development strategy, identifying and engaging strategic partners for SOLA enzymatic DNA synthesis technology, expanding market opportunities and partnership pipelines.

• Developed cost and throughput models to articulate SOLA's value proposition, supporting sales, licensing negotiations, and strategic business cases.
• Proactively engaged potential partners via industry networking and targeted outreach, driving discussions for technology adoption and market expansion.
• Collaborated with stakeholders to identify and qualify automation partners, enhancing workflow scalability and commercial viability.
• Developed custom NGS pipelines to validate product specifications around SOLA synthesis fidelity.

Directed Biofoundry Services, delivering customized DNA solutions to clients, expanding service offerings, and supporting sales engagements for BioXp™ system adoption.

• Expanded Biofoundry Services portfolio, introducing high-value DNA library synthesis offerings and optimizing workflows to enhance customer experience and revenue streams.
• Served as technical liaison in sales engagements, advising clients on DNA library design, optimizing quoting strategies, and influencing purchasing decisions.
• Rapidly launched DNA Library Services product line, aligning R&D, manufacturing, and commercial teams to meet aggressive timelines and market demand.
• Managed technology transfer of DNA synthesis and plasmid verification to GMP contractors, ensuring scalability and regulatory compliance for commercial production.

Project Manager and scientific subject matter expert for the launch of the first GMP manufacturing facility of synthetic DNA for personalized immunotherapy.

• Developed a Synthesis Optimization Tool (SOT) to perform codon optimization while minimizing synthesis complexity, leading to the win of SGI-DNA's first GMP customer
• As Project Manager, led the team through the engineering runs required for our customer's successful IND submission
• Updated and validated sequence complexity engine, improving BioXp™ build prediction accuracy from ~80 to >95%

Steven Thomas, Nathaniel D. Maynard, and John Gill

Nature Methods • 2015

Christine Chen, Steven Thomas, Nathaniel D. Maynard

2015

Sarah W. Bird, Nathaniel D. Maynard, Markus W. Covert, and Karla Kirkegaard

PNAS • 2014

Eric C. Freundt, Nathaniel D. Maynard, Eileen Clancy, Shyamali Roy, Luc Bousset, Yannick Sourigues, Markus Covert, Ronald Melki, Karla Kirkegaard, and Michel Brahic

Annals of Neurology • 2012

Nathaniel D. Maynard, Derek Macklin, Karla Kirkegaard, and Markus W. Covert

Molecular Systems Biology • 2011