Team

Daniel Wiegand, MSChE

Daniel is Co-founder, CEO and Board Director of EnPlusOne Bio. Previously, Daniel was an Advanced Technology Team staff member at the Wyss Institute for Biologically Inspired Engineering and Dr. George Church’s lab at Harvard Medical School. At the Wyss, Daniel was extensively involved in developing translational technology revolving around microarray based high throughput DNA/RNA oligonucleotide library synthesis, large scale gene assembly and fluorescence in situ gene sequencing (FISSEQ). During his tenure at the Wyss Institute, Daniel lead the development of several cell free protein expression systems from non-standard bacteria such as Vibrio natriegens, Streptomyces coelicolor and Pseudomonas aeruginosa. His passion for protein engineering, mutagenesis and high-throughput expression techniques led to the development of novel enzymes that are currently being used to build a next-generation RNA oligonucleotide synthesis & manufacturing platform at EnPlusOne Bio. Daniel received his Bachelor of Science in Biochemistry and Master of Science in Chemical Engineering from Northeastern University.

Education & Affiliations

Jonathan Rittichier, PhD

Jonathan is Co-founder and CSO of EnPlusOne Bio. He performed his graduate work in organic synthesis at Indiana University in Bloomington, Indiana. During his time there, he secured a Briscoe Fellowship and worked in the laboratory of Professor Michael Vannieuwenhze. Much of this work was toward synthesizing 1) novel fluorescent probes to spy on bacteria and 2) macrocyclic natural products to kill them. He joined George Church’s Research Group at Harvard Medical School where he helped develop an enzymatic RNA synthesis platform that formed the technical basis of EnPlusOne Bio. Jonathan earned his BS in Chemistry from Indiana Wesleyan University and a PhD in Organic Chemistry from Indiana University.

Education & Affiliations

Dan Ahlstedt, MBA

Dan is Co-founder, COO, and Board Director of EnPlusOne Bio. He joined the team while attending business school and was introduced to the scientific co-founders through participation in the Nucleate Program at Harvard. During this experience, Dan became convinced EnPlusOne had the technology and team to tackle the many problems facing RNA synthesis. Upon graduation, Dan was selected as a Blavatnik Fellow in Life Science Entrepreneurship which provided resources and mentorship instrumental in founding EnPlusOne. Working in the cutting-edge space of RNA is well-aligned with his passion for the biotechnology industry and rare diseases. Previously, he worked at Sanofi as a process engineer supporting large scale cGMP manufacturing of enzyme replacement therapies. Most recently, he led the design, construction, and validation of purification operations for a new continuous biomanufacturing facility, awarded the 2020 ISPE Facility of the Year. Dan earned his BS in Chemical Engineering from Northeastern University and an MBA from Harvard Business School.

Education & Affiliations

George Church, PhD

George is Co-founder and Scientific Advisor of EnPlusOne Bio. He leads Synthetic Biology at the Wyss Institute, where he oversees the directed evolution of molecules, polymers and whole genomes to create new tools with applications in regenerative medicine and bioproduction of chemicals. Among his recent work at the Wyss, is development of a technology for synthesizing whole genes and engineering whole genomes, far faster, more accurate, and less costly than current methods. George is widely recognized for his innovative contributions to genomic science and his many pioneering contributions to chemistry and biomedicine. In 1984, he developed the first direct genomic sequencing method, which resulted in the first genome sequence (the human pathogen, H. pylori). He helped initiate the Human Genome Project in 1984 and the Personal Genome Project in 2005. George invented the broadly applied concepts of molecular multiplexing and tags, homologous recombination methods, and array DNA synthesizers.

His many innovations have been the basis for a number of companies including Editas (Gene therapy), Gen9bio (Synthetic DNA), Veritas & Nebula (full human genome). George is Professor of Genetics at Harvard Medical School and Professor of Health Sciences and Technology at Harvard and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT). He has been Director of the U.S. Department of Energy Technology Center and Director of the National Institutes of Health Center of Excellence in Genomic Science. He has received numerous awards including the 2011 Bower Award and Prize for Achievement in Science from the Franklin Institute and election to the National Academy of Sciences and Engineering.

Education & Affiliations

Zeynep Yurtsever, PhD

Zeynep is a Senior Scientist at EnPlusOne Bio. Building on her background in computational and inorganic chemistry, she moved into the protein biochemistry and X-ray crystallography field during her graduate studies to characterize novel enzymes and elucidate protein-protein interaction mechanisms. She continued studying difficult protein complexes for structure-based drug design projects as a postdoctoral researcher at Dana-Farber Cancer Institute. In the industry, she has worked at Pfizer focusing on biophysical characterization and developability assessments of antibody-based drug modalities in the pre-clinical space, and later at a stealth-level biotech company focusing on protein expression and purification, as well as functional assay development. Zeynep earned her BS in Chemistry from Koç University in Turkey and her PhD in Biology and Biomedical Sciences from Washington University in St. Louis.

Education & Affiliations

Ella Meyer

Ella is an Associate Scientist at EnPlusOne, focusing on biochemical research. She recently graduated from Georgetown University, where she completed a thesis on small molecule binding sites in intrinsically disordered proteins. Ella previously worked at Northpond Ventures and the Wyss Institute, where she met the EnPlusOne team. She was so impressed with the team and the technology that she returned to EnPlusOne after graduation. Ella received her Bachelor of Science in Biochemistry from Georgetown University.

Education & Affiliations

Dominic Rainone, MS

Dominic is an Associate Scientist at EnPlusOne Bio., specializing in organic synthesis. He is a recent graduate from Massachusetts College of Pharmacy and Health Sciences, where he received a Bachelor of Science in Chemistry and a Master of Science in Pharmaceutical Chemistry. While attending university, Dominic worked as a Research Intern for the Lencer and Loddenkemper laboratories at Harvard Medical School and Boston Children’s Hospital. His undergraduate research was focused on the synthesis of ultra-pure fluorescent probes for inclusion in plastic scintillators. His Master’s Thesis concerned the synthesis of a dopamine agonist as a drug target for cocaine abuse disorder. 

Education & Affiliations

Howon Lee, PhD

Dr. Howon Lee is a former Post Doctoral Fellow in Dr. George Church’s Laboratory at Harvard Medical School and the Wyss Institute for Biologically Inspired Engineering. Howon is an expert electrical and photonics engineer. Throughout his carrier, he invented several novel devices for optically synthesizing and purifying DNA, RNA and was extensively involved in lab spin-off companies (QuantaMatrix Inc, Celemics Inc) in South Korea. He contributed to EnPlusOne Biosciences by prototyping a first-generation enzymatic oligonucleotide synthesizer. Howon earned his BS, MS in Electrical Engineering, and a Ph.D. in Nanoscience and Technology from Seoul National University. He is currently employed as a Staff Scientist at Singular Genomics.

Education & Affiliations