Kenneth P. Tai, PhD Genentech

My name is Kenneth Tai and I am currently a quality control scientist at Genentech.  I received my Ph.D. in 2012 studying the structure and function of antimicrobial peptides in innate immunity.  During that time I solved the 3D structure of an antimicrobial peptide using NMR, elucidated multiple conserved regions necessary for its functional activity, and published 9 journal articles.   After graduating, I took a position as a technical applications scientist at ThermoFisher, supporting PCR, real-time PCR, SNP genotyping, relative quantification, gene expression, siRNA, microRNAs, and all Applied Biosystems themocyclers (including real-time).  I led cross-functional projects and troubleshooting between, sales, manufacturing, regulatory, and quality.  I became the global single point of contact (SPOC) for all real-time PCR reagents.  I started my career in quality control at Genentech and served several roles: Senior QC Associate, QC Associate Scientist, and currently, a QC Scientist. I have worked on method development, transfer, and validation for real-time PCR assays for adventitious agents testing. I am currently working to bring Next Generation Sequencing (NGS) as a method to replace multiple adventitious agents testing and to work towards a real-time release of product to provide medicines as quickly as possible to our patients.