Jay Keasling and Douglas Cameron Join Evolva Scientific Advisory Board

04-Aug-2011 - Switzerland

Evolva Holding SA  announced that Jay Keasling, PhD and Doug Cameron, PhD, both experts in the field of synthetic biology and metabolic engineering, have joined the Evolva Scientific Advisory Board.

Keasling is co-founder of a number of startups in this space, including Amyris. He is a professor in the Department of Chemical & Biomolecular Engineering and the Department of Bioengineering, Senior Faculty Scientist and Associate Laboratory Director for Biosciences at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, and Chief Executive Office of the Joint BioEnergy Institute. The Keasling group is perhaps best known for its contributions to the development of a synthetic biology technique for producing the anti-malaria treatment artemisinin in yeast1) —at a fraction of the cost of plantation-derived artemisinin.

Keasling and his team at UC-Berkeley are global experts in the biosynthesis of a class of molecules known as isoprenoids, the same class of molecules that are the primary focus of Evolva’s R&D activities. The product applications of these molecules include pharmaceutical compounds, flavorants and fragrances.

Doug Cameron, founder and managing director of the Minneapolis, Minnesota-based consultancy Alberti Advisors, is the former head of biotechnology at Cargill. He was the Managing Director-Chief Scientific Advisor at Piper-Jaffray and Chief Scientific Officer at Khosla Ventures. Prior to his industry roles, he was a professor of chemical engineering at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. 

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