Jacob Smith, MS

Jacob was born in Memphis, TN, where he lived for the first nine years of his life before moving to Charleston, SC. He completed his undergraduate studies in biochemistry at Anderson University (SC). He then pursued his M.S. in Bioinformatics from Georgia Tech part-time, graduating in 2026 while working full-time in Dr. John Blazeck’s immunological and cellular engineering lab.

Jacob’s previous research centered on an ARPA-H-funded project focused on discovering short, protease-cleavable peptide masks for multiple cancer-targeting antibodies to improve specificity and reduce off-target effects. Through this work, he gained extensive experience in yeast surface display, flow cytometry, and molecular biology.

As a Research Specialist at Emory, Jacob is leveraging his experience yeast display and protein engineering to build new tools to study R-loops.

Outside of the lab, Jacob enjoys fishing, baseball, and annoying his wife, Lexi.