Allison Holzman

Bachelor's

Chemical Engineering

The Alper Lab of Cellular and Metabolic Engineering

Undergraduate Researcher

Publication: Modular Ligation Extension of Guide RNA Operons (LEGO) for multiplexed dCAS9 regulation of metabolic pathways in Saccharomyces cerevisiae. Accepted/In Press in the Biotechnology Journal. Publication featured on the cover. Publication: https://doi.org/10.1002/biot.201700582 Collaborates with team to engineer strains of S. cerevisiae (Baker’s yeast) using CRISPR-dCas9 in order to make various commodity chemicals (2,3-BDO and 3-HPA). Developed a tool that essentially acts as “valves” in a cell’s metabolism that turn on or off gene expression. By opening or closing these “valves”, one can simultaneously alter expression of multiple genes in living cells. This tool will be extremely useful in cutting down the time needed for metabolic pathway optimization in vivo. Winner of the Spring 2018 Undergraduate Research Poster Competition. Winner of poster competition at AIChE's annual National Meeting in Pittsburgh, PA. Received an Undergraduate Research Fellowship to pursue my own project.