Alexander Brown completed his doctoral studies at the University of Pennsylvania, where he studied cell signaling events controlling inner ear development. During his postdoctoral work at Stanford University, he focused on neurodifferentiation, medulloblastoma formation, and cerebellar degeneration. To overcome the slow pace and species differences of existing animal models, he pivoted to genome editing and iPS cell systems.

Alex joined the genome editing company Synthego as a founding member of the biology development team, where he performed foundational work for their automated iPSC genome editing platform. He served as biology lead for the development of multiple cell processing hardware systems and continuously increased the scale and robustness of Synthego’s genome editing platforms. He led the development team as the cell editing group spun out of Synthego to form EditCo, where he established their Primary Cell portfolio, brought the first genome-edited human T cells to market, and developed the technology that enabled ultra-fast turnaround times for edited cells.

Alex's interests lie at the intersection of biology, engineering, and data science. Currently, he is the UC Scientific Director at the Laboratory for Genomics Research (LGR) and an Assistant Adjunct Professor in Biochemistry and Biophysics. His work is highly collaborative and focuses on creating and implementing robust, scalable perturbation and analysis platforms to enable new biological insights.