ddavidi

Dan is a synthetic biology expert specializing in metabolic modeling, enzyme evolution, and systems biology. He holds a Ph.D. in systems biology from the Weizmann Institute of Science, working with Prof. Ron Milo to develop new metabolic modeling tools and applying them to improve biological carbon fixation. After a postdoc at the genetics department of Harvard Medical School, he established a new center for Synthetic biology at Harvard (the Hive) and served as its associate director. Working closely with Prof. Pamela Silver, Dan developed, among other technologies, synthetic and bionic photosynthetic systems by coupling microbial growth to photovoltaic energy sources. During his time at Amazon's moonshot factory, he served as the design and computational synthetic-biology lead, working toward optimizing microbial bioproduction at scale from CO2-derived feedstocks, and specifically focusing on SAF. Dan worked with top researchers in the field, government officials, and leading synthetic biology companies throughout his career. He published 22 peer-reviewed papers in high-impact journals that were cited >2700 times. He is currently an Entraprenuer in Residance at, Aleph.vc - a leading venture capital firm in Israel. Dan wears other 'ecosystem hats and is very involved in nation-level, strategic initiatives to build deep technological innovation in Israel.

October 2023