Manuel J Villa-Garcia

Manuel J Villa-Garcia has over 20 years of work experience in the biotechnology field. Manuel J began their career in 1996 as the Director of the Tecnológico de Monterrey (ITESM) Biotechnology Center, where they were responsible for the strategic planning and management of research and academic activities, budget management, policy writing for industrial contracts and agreements, and management of HR resources, laboratories and equipment. In 1997, they became a Liaison for International Biotechnology Projects and Visiting Associate Professor at Carnegie Mellon University, where they completed the metabolic engineering of a second generation yeast for the industrial production of a bio-based product. Manuel J also trained graduate and international students in traditional genetic yeast strain developing methods and in yeast and bacteria metabolic engineering using modern molecular biology techniques. In 1998, Manuel became the Vice President of Genetics R&D at Cerechem Corp., where they were responsible for the strategic planning of the genetics division and for leading microbial improvement projects to overproduce bio-based chemicals by fermentation. Manuel J also advised the president on partnerships with Mexican biotechnology and fermentation scale-up firms and was involved in writing and filing two patents for industrial production of inositol by fermentation. From 2011 to 2014, Manuel worked as a Yeast Geneticist at BP and then as a Director of Scientific Content and Sr. Scientist Genetics/R&D at Pathway Genomics Corporation, where they managed the clinical-variant analyst group, supervised all scientific content for the company, and coordinated new NGS clinical and wellness product-design and updates for existing products. Since 2017, they have been an External Consultant Genomic Analyst at Human Longevity, Inc.

Manuel J Villa-Garcia holds a Ph.D. in Chemistry from Georgetown University, an M.Sc. in Chemistry from Georgetown University, and a B.Sc. (LCQ) in Chemistry from Tecnológico de Monterrey.