chemistry

Silvana Konermann

Silvana Konermann is a chemistry topic covered in the lgStudy science library. This page brings together a partial reference excerpt, illustrations, worked examples, real-world applications and a short study plan, so you can understand Silvana Konermann rather than just read about it. In short: Silvana Konermann (born 1988) is a Swiss-American bioengineer and neuroscientist whose research focuses on CRISPR, genome engineering, transcription and epigenetics, and Alzheimer's disease. She is an assistant professor of biochemistry at Stanford University and co-founder and executive director of Arc Institute.

Key takeaways

Silvana Konermann belongs to chemistry; place it in that map before memorising details.
Learn the definition first, then one example that makes the definition concrete.
Connect Silvana Konermann to a quantity you can measure, compute or draw — that is where exam questions come from.
Reproduce the core statement of Silvana Konermann from memory before moving on to harder problems.

Reference excerpt

Silvana Konermann (born 1988) is a Swiss-American bioengineer and neuroscientist whose research focuses on CRISPR, genome engineering, transcription and epigenetics, and Alzheimer's disease. She is an assistant professor of biochemistry at Stanford University and co-founder and executive director of Arc Institute. Konermann's research laboratory aims to understand the molecular pathways that drive the development of Alzheimer’s disease using next-generation functional genomics, with the long-term goal of developing rationally targeted therapeutics for neurodegenerative disorders.

Early life and education Silvana Maria Konermann was born in 1988 in Baden, Switzerland near Zürich. She attended Sächsisches Landesgymnasium Sankt Afra zu Meißen in Saxony, Germany. She received her Bachelor's degree in neurobiology from ETH Zurich in 2009. In 2010, Konermann entered the Brain and Cognitive Sciences PhD program at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. She joined Feng Zhang's lab at the Broad Institute and McGovern Institute for Brain Research as one of Zhang's first graduate students. During her PhD, Konermann contributed to the development of pioneering genetic perturbation technologies, including one of the first systems for genome-scale CRISPR activation. She completed her PhD in neuroscience in 2016, receiving the Harold M. Weintraub Graduate Student Award for "outstanding achievement during graduate studies in the biological sciences."

Career As a postdoctoral fellow at the Salk Institute, Konermann was part of the team that discovered Cas13d, a new subclass of compact RNA-targeting CRISPR effectors. She was named an HHMI Hanna H. Gray Fellow in 2017 and a CZ Biohub investigator in 2019. In October 2019, Konermann joined Stanford as an assistant professor of biochemistry. Along with UC Berkeley professor Patrick Hsu and Stripe CEO Patrick Collison, her husband, she is a co-founder of nonprofit research organization Arc Institute, where she serves as executive director and maintains her research laboratory as a core investigator.

Legacy The minor planet 21546 Konermann was named in honor of her 2006 second-place finish at the Intel International Science and Engineering Fair.

Personal life In June 2022, Konermann married Irish tech billionaire Patrick Collison, the co-founder and CEO of Stripe. Konermann met Collison at the 2005 European Union Contest for Young Scientists.

References

External links Silvana Konermann publications indexed by Google Scholar

Worked examples

Example 1 — a first encounter with Silvana Konermann

Start with the simplest possible case. Write down what Silvana Konermann claims or describes in one sentence, then invent the smallest concrete situation in which that sentence is true. In chemistry, the smallest case is usually a single object, a single equation or a single measurement. Check that every symbol or term in your sentence has a meaning in that case.

Example 2 — changing one variable

Take the situation from Example 1 and change exactly one quantity: double it, halve it, or set it to zero. Predict what should happen to Silvana Konermann before you calculate. Comparing your prediction with the result is the fastest way to find out whether you understand the idea or only the words.

Example 3 — an exam-style question

Typical questions about Silvana Konermann ask you to (a) state it precisely, (b) apply it to given data, and (c) explain a limitation. Practise writing all three answers in under five minutes; the third part is what separates a full-mark answer from an average one.

Applications of Silvana Konermann

In research: Silvana Konermann appears in chemistry research whenever the underlying quantities have to be modelled precisely. Papers usually cite it as a starting assumption and then explore where it breaks down.
In technology and industry: Engineering practice reuses Silvana Konermann in design rules, simulations and safety margins. Knowing the idea lets you read a specification sheet and understand why the numbers look the way they do.
In the classroom: Silvana Konermann is common in secondary-school and first-year university syllabi. It links to neighbouring topics 1988 births, American people of Swiss descent, Biochemical engineering, so understanding it makes those chapters shorter.
In everyday life: Look for Silvana Konermann outside the textbook — in sport, cooking, traffic, electronics or the sky above you. An example you found yourself is remembered far longer than one you were given.

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How to study Silvana Konermann in 20 minutes

Read the reference excerpt below once, without taking notes.
Close the page and write down what Silvana Konermann means in your own words.
Compare your version with the excerpt and mark what you missed.
Work through the three examples above with pen and paper.
Explain Silvana Konermann out loud to somebody else — or to Teacher Smith in the lgStudy chat.

Frequently asked questions

What is Silvana Konermann in simple terms?

Why does Silvana Konermann matter?

Because it connects several chemistry ideas at once: it gives you a definition you can apply, a quantity you can calculate, and a way to check whether a result is plausible.

How should I study Silvana Konermann?

Read the excerpt, restate it from memory, then work through the examples and applications listed on this page. The five-step study plan above takes about twenty minutes.

What does this page cover?

It gives you a compact reference excerpt plus original lgStudy explanations, examples, applications and study material on Silvana Konermann.