Fernanda Piorino Macruz de Oliveira earned her bachelor’s degree in biomolecular engineering in 2018 from Cornell University. She is a current chemical engineering PhD student at Georgia Institute of Technology, where her doctoral work is focused on harnessing the native machinery of E-coli for the development of a field-friendly vitamin C biosensor. She received the ChBE Outstanding TA Award two years in a row and was a 2022 finalist at the Georgia Tech 3-Minute Thesis competition. Fluent in Portuguese, Spanish, and English, she also has professional proficiency in French. As president of the Brazilian Student Association, she brought awareness to Brazilian and Latin American issues ranging from economic crises to political corruptness. Knowing first-hand the socio-economic harshness faced by Latin American people, she also is pursuing the development of low-cost, point-of-care diagnostics that can be used in resource-limited settings. Her use of cell-free expression (CFE) systems — which reduce cost, simplify tuning, and shorten the design-build-test-learn cycle of bacteria-based biosensors — has spurred her interest in using CFE to identify diseases and produce on-site cures for fast, early treatment. She foresees the future Piorino research group developing healthcare platforms using synthetic biology tools. As a professor, she will foster an inclusive and diverse environment for future scientists.

Research Interests

Synthetic Biology, Engineering Biology