Davi Ortega, Ph.D.
International Fellow
Laboratory for Research in Complex Systems
Education
Caltech (Postdoctoral Scholar)
University of Tennessee-Knoxville (Ph.D., Physics)
Universidade Estadual de Campinas (B.S., Physics)
What trend, breakthrough or discovery are you most excited about?
There are several actually. In my Ph.D., I proposed a molecular mechanism for the activation of the processing unit of the bacterial chemosensory system by chemoreceptors. In my postdoctoral work I demonstrate how gut bacteria learned to control their flagellar motor, a breakthrough that suggests that the chemosensory machinery in bacteria might be a flexible control system that can be engineered to control various cellular functions. In addition, I lead the team that designed the first in-production scientific database on the blockchain: the Electron Tomography Database. Finally, as a developer of tools and resources for biologists such as GeneHood (genehood.io) - a tool to facilitate the analysis of gene clusters and the Microbial Signal Transduction Database (mistdb.com).