About Me
My name is Evan Wells and I am a PhD chemical engineer with expertise in mammalian cell culture, protein production, and protein characterization.
I am most skilled in: antibody production, antibody glycosylation and maximizing cell culture efficiency.
Experience
Advisor: Prof. Anne Robinson,
Dissertation: Post-translational modifications to recombinant proteins: Roles in antibody production and neurodegenerative disease
Determined the effects of media supplementation and process conditions on antibody production and antibody glycosylation in shake flask and bench-scale bioreactor CHO cell cultures.
Developed a platform for expressing and purifying phosphorylated tau from E. coli cultures. Characterized the effects of phosphorylation on tau protein isoelectric point and aggregation propensity.
Advisor: Prof. Tonya Zeczycki
Expressed, purified, and kinetically characterized transglutaminase 2, a protein involved in neurodegenerative diseases.
Education
Carnegie Mellon University
Ph.D. Chemical Engineering
2015-2020
Pittsburgh, PA
In addition to my graduate work, I served in various department level and university wide leadership positions
East Carolina University
B.S. Biochemistry, B.A. Chemistry
2009-2013
Greenville, NC
Outstanding senior award in Biochemistry
Publications
Media supplementation for targeted manipulation of monoclonal antibody galactosylation and fucosylation
https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1002/bit.27496
Evan Wells, Liqing Song, Madison Greer, Yu Luo, Varghese Kurian, Babatunde Ogunnaike, Anne S Robinson
Strategies to enhance productivity and modify product quality in therapeutic proteins
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S2211339818300443
Devesh Radhakrishnan, Evan A Wells, Anne Skaja Robinson
Cellular engineering for therapeutic protein production: product quality, host modification, and process improvement
https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1002/biot.201600105
Evan Wells, Anne Skaja Robinson
15 (V/K) kinetic isotope effect and steady-state kinetic analysis for the transglutaminase 2 catalyzed deamidation and transamidation reactions
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0003986118300547
Evan A Wells, Mark A Anderson, Tonya N Zeczycki
Personal Background
I was born and raised in North Carolina. After undergrad, I moved to New Orleans to start graduate school at Tulane before following my advisor to Carnegie Mellon in Pittsburgh to finish my Ph.D. Aside from biotechnology, some of my other interests include:
- Watching movies
- Reading a mixture of science fiction, fantasy, and nonfiction books
- Enjoying the outdoors
- Cooking enjoyable meals