Dr. Kevin Morey

Chemical and Biological Engineering Department

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Biosketch

Dr. Morey is a highly accomplished plant molecular biologist who is applying his expertise to the emerging field of plant synthetic biology. He has spent the last 15+ years researching and developing plants which can detect and report the presence of environmental pollutants and chemicals of interest (i.e. plant sentinels). During the course of this research he has honed the ability to design, troubleshoot, optimize, and implement novel biosensors and genetic circuitry in plants. As part of the plant sentinel project he developed a synthetic signaling system based on histidine kinase signal transduction and oversaw a research group dedicated to implementing, improving and “fixing” synthetic signal transduction pathways. Dr. Morey subsequently spent an additional 4+ years working with genetic circuitry to engineer novel water barriers in plant roots and to manipulate the production of biological polymers in plants. More recently, Dr. Morey has been expressing designer proteins in plants, and is extending his knowledge of genetic circuitry to develop riboswitch-based sensors.

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