Michael Cronce is a PhD Candidate in the UCSF-UC Berkeley Joint PhD Program in Bioengineering co-advised by Drs. Jeffery Cox and Jay Keasling. His designated research focus is therapeutic R&D in infectious disease with a minor focus in metabolic engineering. He received his undergraduate degree in Biology (B.S.) from the University of North Carolina- Chapel Hill with a double minor in Marine Sciences and Chemistry. Following graduation, Michael researched distal lung stem cell biology under Dr. Brigid Hogan, developed translationally-relevant tissue engineering approaches under Dr. Jay Vacanti, and designed new microfluidic organ-on-chip platforms under Dr. Donald Ingber. For graduate training, Michael is developing a novel anti-infective compound family using biosynthetic chemistry and engineering microbial hosts to produce these compounds at industrial scale. In collaboration with CEND, he plans to screen these molecules against a variety of pathogens, including M. tuberculosis and SARS-CoV-2.