Speakers

Omar Akbari received a B.S./M.S. in Biotechnology from the University of Nevada, Reno in May 2005. In December of 2008, he received a Ph.D. in Cell and Molecular Biology from the University of Nevada, Reno where he studied transcriptional regulation during development while working with professor Robert Drewell. He then joined the laboratory of professor Bruce A. Hay at the California Institute of Technology as a postdoctoral scholar where he used principals of synthetic biology to develop population control technologies for animals. In 2015, he became an Assistant Professor of Entomology in the Center for Infectious Disease Vector Research (CIDVR) at the University of California, Riverside. In fall of 2017, he then joined the faculty as an Assistant Professor in the Cell and Developmental Biology Section, within the Division of Biological Sciences, at the University of California, San Diego. In 2018 he co-founded Agragene a biotechnology based startup in San Diego, CA. In 2019 he was promoted to Associate Professor (w/Tenure), and to Professor in 2021. In 2022, he co-founded Synvect a biotechnology based startup in San Diego, CA.

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