Amanda Hewes received her B.S. in Animal and Food Sciences in 2014 and her M.S. in Animal Sciences from the University of Delaware in 2016. There, she researched the effects of heat stress on the transcriptomics of day 28 spleens in modern and legacy line broilers. After graduating, Amanda joined the Gene Editing Institute with a focus on expanding the GEI-developed in vitro gene editing system to explore the implications of complex sequence variations of precise template-mediated gene editing in a high-throughput, cell-free environment. Since then, she has been a key member of the Discovery Research Group led by Dr. Brett Sansbury and has contributed heavily to the elucidation of the mechanism and consequences of precise and error-prone CRISPR-directed gene editing repair. She is first author on seminal papers that established the gene editing on a chip paradigm and has continued that work by using the in vitro system to further elucidate implications of point mutation repair and how the location of these mutations can affect gene editing outcomes.
More recently, she has taken on the leadership role of Education Program Manager and is responsible for designing and creating an outreach program surrounding the Gene Editing 360 platform. The platform is designed to engage people in STEM from various levels of education including high school, college, and the public. Being one of the founders of the in vitro gene editing reaction, which is the basis for the CRISPR in a Box™ educational kit, she can provide expertise to those using the kit with a focus on helping others understand the important concepts surrounding gene editing and CRISPR technology.
