Nico is a Ph.D. candidate at MIT in Biological Engineering. As part of the Collins lab, his research focus is in the area related to synthetic biology, specifically the development of novel tools for disease diagnosis using cell-free expression systems and CRISPR. Prior to joining MIT, he received his Bachelor’s degree in Biomedical Engineering at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, where his thesis was in the area of HIV diagnostics, including the development of novel microfluidic devices for reducing the cost of HIV viral load assays.