Silvana Konermann is a Swiss-American biochemist whose research involves

CRISPR CRISPR () (an acronym for clustered regularly interspaced short palindromic repeats) is a family of DNA sequences found in the genomes of prokaryotic organisms such as bacteria and archaea. These sequences are derived from DNA fragments of bacte ...

Cas9 Cas9 (CRISPR associated protein 9, formerly called Cas5, Csn1, or Csx12) is a 160 kilodalton protein which plays a vital role in the immunological defense of certain bacteria against DNA viruses and plasmids, and is heavily utilized in genetic e ...

, and their use in

genome editing Genome editing, or genome engineering, or gene editing, is a type of genetic engineering in which DNA is inserted, deleted, modified or replaced in the genome of a living organism. Unlike early genetic engineering techniques that randomly inserts ...

. She is an assistant professor of

biochemistry Biochemistry or biological chemistry is the study of chemical processes within and relating to living organisms. A sub-discipline of both chemistry and biology, biochemistry may be divided into three fields: structural biology, enzymology and ...

Stanford University Stanford University, officially Leland Stanford Junior University, is a private research university in Stanford, California. The campus occupies , among the largest in the United States, and enrolls over 17,000 students. Stanford is consider ...

, as well as the Director and co-founder of the Arc Institute in

Palo Alto Palo Alto (; Spanish for "tall stick") is a charter city in the northwestern corner of Santa Clara County, California, United States, in the San Francisco Bay Area, named after a coastal redwood tree known as El Palo Alto. The city was estab ...

Life and work

Konermann attended the prestigious

Sächsisches Landesgymnasium Sankt Afra zu Meißen Sächsisches Landesgymnasium Sankt Afra zu Meißen is a boarding school for highly gifted students in the German city of Meissen, Saxony. Founded in 1543 as ''Fürstliche Landesschule'' and re-established in 2001, the stated aim of the school is ...

Saxony Saxony (german: Sachsen ; Upper Saxon: ''Saggsn''; hsb, Sakska), officially the Free State of Saxony (german: Freistaat Sachsen, links=no ; Upper Saxon: ''Freischdaad Saggsn''; hsb, Swobodny stat Sakska, links=no), is a landlocked state of ...

, Germany, before matriculating in 2006 at

ETH Zurich (colloquially) , former_name = eidgenössische polytechnische Schule , image = ETHZ.JPG , image_size = , established = , type = Public , budget = CHF 1.896 billion (2021) , rector = Günther Dissertori , president = Joël Mesot , ac ...

, where she completed her bachelor of science degree in neurobiology in three years. She then moved to the United States and worked in the lab of Carlos Lois before entering the doctoral program in neuroscience at the

Massachusetts Institute of Technology The Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) is a private land-grant research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Established in 1861, MIT has played a key role in the development of modern technology and science, and is one of the ...

, receiving her Ph.D. in 2016 working in

Feng Zhang Feng Zhang (; born October 22, 1981) is a Chinese-American biochemist. Zhang currently holds the James and Patricia Poitras Professorship in Neuroscience at the McGovern Institute for Brain Research and in the departments of Brain and Cognitive ...

's group. Since 2017, she has been an

HHMI The Howard Hughes Medical Institute (HHMI) is an American non-profit medical research organization based in Chevy Chase, Maryland. It was founded in 1953 by Howard Hughes, an American business magnate, investor, record-setting pilot, engineer, fi ...

(Howard Hughes Medical Institute) Hanna H. Gray Fellow. She has also been a CZ Biohub Investigator and a postdoctoral fellow at the

Salk Institute for Biological Studies The Salk Institute for Biological Studies is a scientific research institute located in the La Jolla community of San Diego, California, U.S. The independent, non-profit institute was founded in 1960 by Jonas Salk, the developer of the polio vacci ...

and the

University of California, Berkeley The University of California, Berkeley (UC Berkeley, Berkeley, Cal, or California) is a public land-grant research university in Berkeley, California. Established in 1868 as the University of California, it is the state's first land-grant u ...

working with Patrick Hsu. In 2019, she joined Stanford as an assistant professor.* * * * Konermann's research uses new genetic tools to identify and understand the workings of the "complex web of genes" that appear to make a person predisposed to the neurodegenerative

Alzheimer’s disease Alzheimer's disease (AD) is a neurodegenerative disease that usually starts slowly and progressively worsens. It is the cause of 60–70% of cases of dementia. The most common early symptom is difficulty in remembering recent events. As t ...

. 21546 Konermann, a

minor planet According to the International Astronomical Union (IAU), a minor planet is an astronomical object in direct orbit around the Sun that is exclusively classified as neither a planet nor a comet. Before 2006, the IAU officially used the term ''minor ...

, was named after her, in honor of her 2006 second-place finish in the

Intel International Science and Engineering Fair The Regeneron International Science and Engineering Fair (ISEF) is an annual science fair in the United States. It is owned and administered by the Society for Science, a 501(c)(3) non-profit organization based in Washington, D.C. Each May, more tha ...

. At that time she was a senior at Sankt Afra in

Meissen Meissen (in German orthography: ''Meißen'', ) is a town of approximately 30,000 about northwest of Dresden on both banks of the Elbe river in the Free State of Saxony, in eastern Germany. Meissen is the home of Meissen porcelain, the Albrecht ...

, Germany. In June 2022, Konermann married Irish tech billionaire

Patrick Collison Patrick Collison (born 9 September 1988) is an Irish billionaire entrepreneur. He is the co-founder and CEO of Stripe, which he started with his younger brother, John, in 2010. He won the 41st Young Scientist and Technology Exhibition in 2005 a ...

, who is co-founder and CEO of Stripe, Inc., with whom she co-founded the Fast Grants and later the Arc Institute. Konermann met Collison during the 2004 EU Young Scientist competition.

References

External links

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Konermann, Silvana Living people Year of birth missing (living people) Place of birth missing (living people) Stanford University faculty American people of Swiss descent Biochemical engineering