Cathy Chang

Dr. Cathy Chang's expertise is in the areas of molecular virology, metagenomics and gene expression. She was formerly a Director at Synthetic Genomics, Inc. (SGI), where she helped to establish SGI's La Jolla laboratory. Before joining the research management team at Synthetic Genomics, Dr. Chang was a Director at Diversa Corporation where she led the Molecular Diversity group and was responsible for the discovery and recovery of novel enzymes and microorganisms from environmental samples. Prior to working at Diversa, Dr. Chang was an Associate Director at Digital Gene Technologies Inc., where she managed the TOGA Technology group that produced gene expression data for their corporate partners. Dr. Chang started her biotechnology career at Stratagene as a Staff Scientist, where she engineered the first mammalian cell line that could be infected by bacteriophage lambda for efficient gene delivery.

Dr. Chang earned her B.S. in Chemistry at the California Institute of Technology, and her Ph.D. in Molecular and Cellular Biology at Arizona State University. Dr. Chang received her postdoctoral training as a Damon Runyon Fellow at The Scripps Research Institute where she discovered the oncogene p3k with Dr. Peter Vogt. She is the author of more than 40 publications and patents, and received the Excellent Leadership Award while she was at Diversa.