User:Zach Bjornson
MIT Biology Department class of 2010 with plans for higher education.
My primary focus is in virology.
One interest is respiratory viruses, especially picornaviruses (human rhinoviruses, major cause of the common cold). They are old pathogens identified in the 1960s, but as soon as researchers realized that there were more than 100 serotypes, people seemed to loose research interest. A few papers have come out recently, but there is still a big space for more research to be done here, and I'd like to help fill it.
Another interest is the hemorrhagic fever viruses, including Lassa, Sabia, Guanarito, Ebola and some pox viruses. The stuff everyone reads horror stories about in semi-fantastical books.
I also have an interest in plants and fungi (especially mushrooms and arbuscular mycorrhizae).
You can contact me at bjornson{at}mit{.}edu or bjornson{at}wi{.}mit{.}edu.
Current Research and Biology Projects
- Identifying causal agents of fevers of unknown origin with a microarray platform. (Rubins lab)
- Writing an ultra-parallelized and updated implementation of a previously described microarray analysis algorithm. (Rubins lab)
- Writing a research proposal for a human rhinovirus project (pre-clinical vaccine study). (Rubins lab, summer 2009)
Past Research and Bioengineering Projects
- Summer 2008: Developed a protocol to measure radical/reactive oxygen species in Gram-negative bacteria at the royal Chulabhorn Research Institute in Bangkok, Thailand. Also worked on isolating and identifying a compound (suspected to be homogentisic acid) from a Pseudomonas culture in which a certain oxidase was knocked out.
- 20.109 research proposal assignment: [enhancement of] vasculogenesis with statins and hyaluronan jelly. mock project only (wiki page)
- Optimization of Expression, Solubilization and Purification of the Membrane Protein HORF17-4 in E. coli Using Fractional Factorial Design (Zhang Lab).
- Optimization of Cell-Free Expression of Membrane Proteins with Self-Assembling Peptides (Zhang Lab)
- Cloning and Expression of UGT1A1 in E. coli (project blog)
- Airplane Drinking Water Testing for Microbial Contaminants
Honors and Media
- Special Congressional Recognition for Environmental Work
- Environmental Protection Agency environmental service award
- United Nations Environment Programme youth advisor
- 2005 International Young Eco-Hero Award
- June 22, 2006 designated in Moraga, CA as a day of recognition
- Ready, set, go: Class of 2010 leaps into action. MIT Tech Talk article.
- A Genius for Leadership: MIT's Amazing Students. MIT Spectrum Summer 2007 article. (Cover page and following pages.)
- Making their own music. MIT Tech Talk article.
- See also the links above, in projects.
Lab Skills and Areas of Experience
Preparative
- Nucleic acids (cloning, engineering, extraction, site-directed mutagenesis, RT-PCR, real time PCR, etc.)
- Fractional factorial and D-optimal design of experiment
- Bacterial cell culture, including BSL2+ pathogens - micro scale (microwell plate), medium scale (shake flask), large scale (stirred tank bioreactor)
- Cell-free protein expression (E. coli lysate system)
- Yeast cell culture
- Mammalian cell (tissue) culture (small scale) - 2D (plates/dishes) and 3D (scaffolds)
- Mammalian cell culture (large scale) - hollow fiber, rock-bed and stirred-tank bioreactors
- Mammalian cell culture - metabolite monitoring; scale-up design
- Extensive membrane protein work (overexpression of membrane proteins; lysing cells and solubilizing membrane proteins while maintaining protein quality/functionality)
Analytical
- General protein work (1D gels, Western blots, dot blots, ELISAs, etc.)
- Fluorescence microscopy (multicolor)
- Very extensive flow cytometry (multilaser, multicolor) of mammalian, bacterial and yeast cells
- UV/Vis spectroscopy (96-well format, for protein and DNA quantification; also in LC detection)
- Affinity chromatography (for purification of proteins; basic; used His-Trap and His-Spin kit)
- FPLC (of proteins)
- HPLC (of organic molecules)
- Real time PCR
- Microarrays
Other
- Computer programming - extensive knowledge of Mathematica. Mathematica is widely accepted as the most powerful programming language, and one of the fastest. Knowledge also of R, C (for CUDA), Visual Basic and Perl (mostly for Web interfaces).
- Various mechanical engineering skills, including systems automation and fluids handling.
Other Interests
I play organ and harpsichord. You can frequently find me practicing organ in Kresge or the MIT Chapel. I'm building a replica of the 1736 Hemsch harpsichord (on display at the Boston Museum of Fine Arts) in the MIT Hobby Shop (article and project blog). I like building things, and if I were to switch majors it would probably be to Course 2 (Mechanical Engineering).
I'm from the San Francisco Bay Area. I'm a vegetarian, tree-hugger, environmentalist, animal-rights activist... spreading San Francisco values.
And I love to travel.
Non-bioengineering Projects
These are mostly links to the internal pages of http://utopia.mit.edu.
- Check back here later for real links.
- I am the student facilities chair for Simmons Hall. I am organizing the effort to increase green space at the dorm, inside and out.
- I do a lot of A/V work and sound engineering at Simmons and elsewhere. Expertise in live sound reinforcement, distributed audio, system automation, high definition signal processing.
- I culture orchids... remotely. I started this in high school so I could hybridize species, but now my parents take care of the plants while I am at school.
