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Fernanda Piorino (IntlAssoc)

Research Associate, PREP program

Fernanda Piorino received a B.S. from Cornell University and a Ph.D. from Georgia Institute of Technology, both in Chemical Engineering. As a graduate student, she developed bacteria-based biosensors for point-of-care diagnostics and began her journey studying cell-free expression systems. As a PREP postdoctoral associate in the Cellular Engineering Group at NIST, she developed easy-to-run assays for characterizing cell-free transcription and translation to improve the predictability and reproducibility of cell-free systems.

She is currently a PREP Research Associate in the Cellular Engineering Group, now focusing on the use of cell-free systems as a platform for biomanufacturing, prototyping genetic circuits, and studying the effect of cellular components on genetic circuit behavior.

Publications

Experimental Evaluation of AI-Driven Protein Design Risks Using Safe Biological Proxies

Author(s)
Svetlana Ikonomova, Bruce Wittmann, Fernanda Piorino Macruz de Oliveira, David Ross, Samuel Schaffter, Olga Vasilyeva, Elizabeth Strychalski, Eric Horvitz, James Diggans, Sheng Lin-Gibson, Geoffrey Taghon
Advances in machine learning are providing new abilities for engineering biology, promising leaps forward with beneficial applications. At the same time, these
Created August 5, 2023, Updated January 5, 2026
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