Session Chair Profile

Andrew Brooks

Biography

Andy serves as the Chief Operating Officer of Rutgers University Cell and DNA Repository “RUCDR Infinite Biologics”. He oversees the operations of all laboratories within RUCDR, ensuring consistent and superior quality standards for all services. Since joining RUCDR, he has worked to automate and develop the service infrastructure to provide high throughput sample management and analysis for DNA, RNA and protein-based technologies for hundreds of labs globally. His methodologies focus on extending the use of valuable samples by extracting and renewing limited quantities of biomaterial with newly developed technologies. Andy is a molecular neuroscientist whose research focuses on deciphering the molecular mechanisms that underlie memory and learning. These studies investigate gene-environment interactions in the context of aging, neurodegenerative disease and neurotoxicant exposure. He is a well-recognized genomicist and has been involved in the development and implementation of cutting edge molecular based technologies for nucleic acid and protein analyses. Andy also serves as the Director of the Bionomics Research and Technology Center (BRTC) at the Environmental and Occupational Health Science Institute of the University of Medicine and Dentistry of New Jersey and as Associate Professor of Environmental Medicine and Genetics at UMDNJ/Rutgers. He received his PhD from the University of Rochester, School of Medicine.