assistant professor | Founder | INVEntor

Biography

Dr. Mireille Kamariza is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Bioengineering at the University of California, Los Angeles. She is a chemical biologist with expertise building diagnostics tools against infectious organisms. With a background in chemical biology, infectious disease research, she researches new tools to selectively probe molecular activity of live cells, in real-time, with versatile applications in research and medicine.

She was previously a Junior Fellow at the Harvard Society of Fellows working with Prof. Pardis Sabeti at the Broad Institute of Harvard and MIT. There, she worked on developing CRISPR-Cas13 assays to detect bloodborne viruses such as Ebolavirus, Lassa virus, Yellow Fever virus, and many others. In partnership with the Sentinel Project, Dr. Kamariza traveled to Nigeria to train and implement these diagnostic tests as well as evaluate their utility in the field.

Prior to her appointment at Harvard, she completed her doctoral studies in Biology at Stanford University where she developed a new diagnostic technology for the rapid and simple detection of tuberculosis (TB) at the point-of-care. This project was awarded a Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation grant to test their diagnostic devices in places with high levels of disease. In addition, her work was translated into a public benefit corporation and, as a co-Founder of OliLux Biosciences, Inc. -- a company dedicated to providing low- cost, portable and reliable diagnostic devices in low-resource settings -- she continues to serve the underserved and underrepresented populations.

Dr. Kamariza has received many awards and honors. In 2022, she was featured as one of 11 Up-and-Coming Researchers by Nature Medicine. In 2020, she was named one of Chemical & Engineering News’ Talented 12. During her graduate studies, she received the Ruth L. Kirschstein Pre-Doctoral National Research Service (F31) Award from the National Institutes of Health, Diversifying Academia, Recruiting Excellence Doctoral Fellowship from Stanford University, the Chancellor’s Fellowship and the National Science Foundation F Bridge to the Doctorate Graduate Fellowship at UC Berkeley, and the Maximizing Access to Research Careers Award from the National Institute of General Medical Sciences while at the University of California, San Diego. In 2017, she was selected as one of Fortune Magazine’s World’s Most Powerful Women. She also hold a masters degree from the University of California, Berkeley in Molecular and Cell Biology and a bachelors degree from the University of California, San Diego in Biochemistry and Chemistry.