Post-Doc, UTK
Biography
Supervising Faculty: Mike Simpson
Liz is a graduate student from Chattanooga, Tennessee. Before joining the Bredesen Center, she studied Biomedical Engineering at Georgia Tech where her interests focused on tissue engineering and biomaterials. She continued her studies in biomaterials at the University of Tennessee, Knoxville, where she met her current advisor after taking his Nano-Biomaterials class. Her research uses Cell-Free Protein Expression systems to answer questions integral to both bioenergy and medical applications, specifically how bioproduct formation from gene expression may be affected by physical parameters. Using the resources available from the Center for Nanophase Materials Science and the Biological and Nanoscale Systems Group at ORNL, she uses both microfluidic platforms and synthetic biology tools to apply physical constraints to gene expression reactions. This includes constraints which are difficult (or even impossible) to manipulate in living cells, such as macromolecular crowding and confinement. Her current work includes establishing methods for encapsulating and imaging gene expression reactions, and distinguishing the individual contributions of transcription and translation to gene expression through timescale and noise analysis. In her spare time, Liz enjoys running, and in July 2016 completed a 500k footrace across the state of Tennessee. She wishes all problems in biophysics research were as easy to complete as that race.
Education
Master of Science, Biomedical Engineering, University of Tennessee, Knoxville, 2012
Bachelor of Science, Biomedical Engineering, Georgia Institute of Technology, 2011
Publications
Google Scholar profile: Liz Norred