Kevin Roelofs

Ample Agriculture aims to help farmers feed more people at lower economic and environmental costs. We are developing products to enhance feed efficiency and reduce methane emissions from cattle and other ruminants. Methane emissions from these animals account for >5% of all global greenhouse gas emissions, more than Germany, France and the entire global aviation industry combined. We are currently completing in-vitro and ex-vivo testing of our lead compound, AMP-101, which is a small molecule that interferes with an essential component of methyl-coenzyme M reductase, the enzyme responsible for all known biogenic methane production on earth.

Consulting solutions for microbial products in discovery, development, manufacturing, and regulatory activities. Specialize in biomanufacturing process development and analytics for regulated products including therapeutics, food, and cosmetics.

Led process development team, managed CDMO relationships, and support IND filings for Novome’s LBP programs in US & Canada Improved lyophilization survival by >6 logs CFU/g for clinical Bacteroides strain, developed multiple formulation types, and evaluated GI transit and engraftment in pre-clinical models

Led process development team for LBP consortia products & managed CDMO relationships & IND filing activities for Finch’s autism & IBD programs

Tech-transferred improved methods of anaerobic cell banking, fermentation, drying, formulation and other factors influencing the critical quality attributes of live biotherapeutic products. Improved viability of cell banks and lyophilized powders by multiple logs for diverse gut anaerobes Managed CMC budgets, timelines and decision making processes across Finch’s early-stage LBP consortia programs. Formed integrated CMC teams for Finch’s consortia programs enabling consolidated CMC inputs to program teams. Managed quality and technical contractors as part of the IBD and ASD CMC teams.

Led Microbiology team for isolation, cell banking, & pre-clinical characterization of 10.000+ diverse anaerobic bacterial isolates from the human gut. Enabled strategic partnership with Takeda in IBD. Developed pre-clinical & CMC strategies for a multi-strain consortia products, successfully challenged blocking IP, and drafted claims to protect compositions & methods. Implemented custom ELN / LIMS on Benchling platform enabling sample tracking that supported FDA requirements for LBPs, and data capture enabling semi-automated analysis of purity, identity, and viability across 10,000+ isolate strain library.

Discovered unique genetic architectures for secreted antimicrobial proteins in Bacteroides (BSAPs) Cloned and expressed BSAP toxin and target proteins in E. coli and Bacteroides, enabling purification and biochemical analysis. Tested ecological competition hypotheses using genetically engineered Bacteroides strains in mouse models and validated results against human gut metagenome data sets.

Microbiology 2014 Thesis Advisor: Dr. Vincent Lee Thesis: Systematic Identification and Characterization of Cyclic di GMP Binding Proteins in Vibrio cholerae