New York, New York, United States
Oliver Medvedik is presently the Director of the Kanbar Center for Biomedical Engineering at The Cooper Union, where he carries out research on improving gene targeting in mammalian cells, enzymatic oligonucleotide synthesis and other bioengineering projects with undergraduate and graduate students at the Albert Nerken School of Engineering. During the summers he also teaches a synthetic biology STEM course for high school students at The Cooper Union, as well as designing and teaching molecular and cell biology courses for undergraduates during the fall and spring semesters. He is co-founder of the community biotechnology laboratory, Genspace, located in Brooklyn, where he continues to serve on its board of directors. A first of its kind, it is an open biotechnology laboratory that enables individuals, unaffiliated with any institution, to use the tools of biotechnology in a shared, co-working, biosafety level one laboratory space, on various biotech projects. He presently teaches CRISPR-Cas9 gene editing workshops that he has designed for the public at Genspace. He is also co-founder and vice-president of the non-profit organization LEAF (Life Extension Advocacy Foundation), where he serves on the board of directors. LEAF has launched a crowd-funding platform for fiscally sponsoring research directed towards longevity and diseases of aging. He has worked as a biotechnology consultant at Sirtris Pharmaceuticals and has taught molecular and synthetic biology to hundreds of students while at Harvard University, The Cooper Union, School of Visual Arts, Genspace and NYU. He has also instructed six different undergraduate teams for the International Genetically Engineered Machines Competition (iGEM) from 2009-2015. He continues to collaborate on bio-inspired projects with TerreformOne, a non-profit architecture group for smart city design, ecological planning and art, where he also serves as Director of Science. He was awarded a TED Fellowship in 2012.
As Director of the Kanbar Center, I help design and lead the bioengineering research projects occurring at The Cooper Union. My summers are usually spent overseeing experiments with undergraduate and graduate students, running a STEM bioengineering course and expanding the bioengineering opportunities for members of The Cooper Union community.
I design/teach courses and mentor students in Biomaterial design, where we use both genetically modified and natural organisms to produce materials for projects. The strains used thus far are the bacterium Gluconacetobacter xylinus, which secretes cellulose, Ganoderma lucidum, a multicellular saprophytic fungus that coverts cellulose into chitin and various modified fluorescent strains of Escherichia coli, used in bioprinting.