Edwin Saada
December 12, 2023
What do you like about working at the Lab?
I really enjoy the teams of people I work with and our project scopes. It's a really creative and innovative environment where we can often utilize really cool and cutting edge scientific approaches and techniques.
What do your day-to-day work activities include?
About half of the day, I spend doing hands-on laboratory work, mostly molecular and cellular biology. This includes passaging tissue culture lines or doing viral challenges, setting up and performing various in vitro assays, cloning new constructs, or generating new cell lines. The other half of my day is spent in meetings, analyzing data, writing reports, making presentations, and collaborating with others.
What is one project you’re really proud to have worked on?
Without a doubt, the COVID-related projects. I've been a team member on various SARS-CoV-2 countermeasure projects, ranging from small-molecule inhibitors of viral proteins up to computationally designed neutralizing antibodies. These projects have been both internally and externally sponsored, and have a wide-ranging team encompassing all different scientific backgrounds. It's been a great experience to work so collaboratively with so many people on such an important focus point!
What is your educational or career background?
I have a bachelor's degree in Biotechnology from UC Davis, and went to work in biotech at a genomics startup. I left to pursue my PhD in Microbiology, Immunology, & Molecular Genetics from UCLA. I did a postdoc in the Systems Biology group at Sandia National Laboratories prior to joining LLNL.
What inspired you to go into your field of work?
I've always been drawn to the sciences. I used to joke that "Jurassic Park" is what took me to Biotechnology originally. I wanted to be the scientist who hatched and played with the baby dinos (but got off the island safely before the storm, of course). Once in college, I had the opportunity to take so many different lecture and laboratory courses, and really got interested in molecular mechanisms, and over time I really felt drawn towards medical microbiology. Infectious diseases, how they're caused, how to combat them. I now find myself working at the intersection of host-pathogen interactions, and how to apply new cutting-edge techniques (like CRISPR) in pursuit of countermeasures and therapeutics. I find it to be really rewarding and important work for scientific advancement, as well as public health and biosecurity.
What advice would you give to a new employee at the Lab?
I'd recommend trying to meet many people, and keep open to new possibilities. I started during the COVID shutdown, and it took me a while to meet lots of people, but I'm constantly surprised and interested by all the cool science and work being done all around, but also made so many friends that make this a great place to be.
What are your hobbies/what do you do in your free time?
I really enjoy spending family time together with my wife and young daughter. We enjoy playing outside, going on hikes, and love exploring on day trips (including zoos, aquariums, and museums), and hopefully traveling more once COVID is less of a concern. Otherwise, I love curling up around a good book, especially space Sci-Fi.
Learn more about Edwin:
Biography
