Miguel Tellez
Molecular biologist who builds the software the bench needs
mtellez1846@gmail.comlinkedin.com/in/miguel-tellez-62010a78Resume (PDF)
About
I spent nearly six years in industry cell line development and nucleic-acid assay development, most of it at AstraZeneca in Gaithersburg, where I led three stem-cell line development campaigns using multiplex CRISPR-Cas9 targeted integration and built the qPCR genotyping and dPCR transgene-stability assays that supported manufacturing scale-up.
The bottleneck I kept hitting was assay design, so I wrote the tool that removed it. Primer Design and Off-Target Analysis wraps Primer3 and BLAST+ with the CHO genome bundled, screens every assay genome-wide, and ships as a one-click Windows build that colleagues without Python can run.
In 2026 I founded a software company and built production systems end to end, including a deterministic language-classification engine with client libraries, a published VS Code extension, a studio-management platform with real users, and a four-node NVIDIA GPU cluster for fine-tuning and serving language models. I am looking for work where both halves count.
Experience
Founder and Engineer
Nascent Poly LLC · Rockville, MD
- Designed and shipped CED, a deterministic sub-millisecond natural-language classification engine with 44 domain configurations, a FastAPI service, a CLI, and Python, TypeScript and Swift client libraries; on-device speech models are compiled from the same configurations.
- Built and operated a four-node NVIDIA DGX Spark GPU cluster as a direct-attach ring with a custom NCCL network plugin; ran LoRA fine-tuning sweeps, built a teacher-student SFT corpus with LLM-judge evaluation, and served models with vLLM behind an inference router.
- Delivered the Sophia Selene Yoga platform, a Django application with 26 apps and 392 REST endpoints, Stripe payments and memberships, an esbuild JavaScript frontend and Capacitor mobile shells, with Playwright and Lighthouse gates in CI.
- Published Launchpad, a voice-and-text natural-language command palette for VS Code with 195 intents, on the Visual Studio Marketplace.
Launchpad on the Marketplace ↗nascentpoly.com ↗sophiaseleneyoga.com ↗
Scientist, Cell Line Development
AstraZeneca · Gaithersburg, MD
- Led three stem-cell line development campaigns using targeted transgene insertion; developed a multiplex homology-directed repair method for CRISPR-Cas9 targeted integration.
- Built Primer Design and Off-Target Analysis, a Python desktop application (Primer3, NCBI BLAST+, CHO CriGri-PICRH-1.0 genome) that automates qPCR and dPCR assay design with genome-wide off-target screening, alignment checks against alternative sequences, multiplex support and amplicon risk categorization; packaged as a one-click Windows executable with a command-line batch mode.
- Built qPCR genotyping assays for engineered cell lines; in CHO cell line development ran dPCR analysis of transgene stability across manufacturing scale-up and established the group's assay-development workflows.
- Scripted Hamilton liquid handlers for assay workflows.
QC Analyst and Research Associate (contract)
AstraZeneca · Gaithersburg, MD
- qPCR analysis of pluripotency and differentiation markers supporting the human ventricular progenitor cardiac regeneration program (Poch et al., Nature Cell Biology, 2022).
Scientist, R&D; Microbiologist and Biochemist
Cian Diagnostics · Frederick, MD
- Introduced Illumina next-generation sequencing to the laboratory and developed SARS-CoV-2 sequencing assays; authored the standard operating procedures.
- Performed SARS-CoV-2 RT-qPCR patient-sample testing with instrument calibration, quality control and complete documentation.
Research Associate, Kralli Laboratory
Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine · Baltimore, MD
- Characterized Mcrip2, a novel gene in mitochondrial thermogenesis, with AAV overexpression and lentiviral knockdown studies in cancer cell lines and primary inguinal adipocytes; optimized immunofluorescence localization; built and validated plasmids and reagents.
- Closed two departmental seminars and led a journal club.
Undergraduate Researcher, Linder Laboratory
California State University, Fullerton · Fullerton, CA
- Purified and characterized a novel small copper carrier in blood plasma and urine using FPLC, size-exclusion chromatography and centrifugal filtration with a Cu-67 radiotracer; led a team of four.
- Presented at Experimental Biology 2015 and 2016, SACNAS 2015, SUPERB 2016 and the 10th International Meeting on Copper 2016.
Projects and products
Primer Design and Off-Target Analysis
Lab software
Desktop application that designs qPCR and dPCR primers and probes with Primer3, screens every assay genome-wide against the CHO genome with NCBI BLAST+, checks alignment against alternative sequences, categorizes amplicon risk and supports multiplex reactions. One-click Windows build, command-line batch mode, optional GPU-accelerated BLAST.
Python, Tkinter, Primer3, BLAST+, PyInstaller · Demo available.
Launchpad for VS Code ↗
Published product
Type or speak plain English and the matching VS Code command runs. 195 intents, on-device voice, deterministic local matching with no cloud calls. Free on the Marketplace.
TypeScript
Sophia Selene Yoga platform ↗
Live product
Class schedule and booking, memberships and passes, private sessions, accounts and a member portal, newsletter and reminders for a studio in Rockville. Built and operated end to end.
Django 6, Django REST Framework, Stripe, Celery, esbuild, Capacitor, Playwright, Lighthouse, Caddy
CED classification engine
Engine
Deterministic, sub-millisecond natural-language intent classification with 44 domain configurations, a FastAPI service, a CLI and client libraries in three languages. Launchpad runs on it.
Python, FastAPI · Proprietary; architecture overview on request.
Four-node NVIDIA DGX Spark cluster
Infrastructure
Switchless direct-attach GPU ring with a custom NCCL network plugin; multi-node RDMA validated; LoRA fine-tuning, SFT corpus construction with LLM-judge evaluation, vLLM serving behind an inference router.
CUDA, NCCL, PyTorch, vLLM, Linux · Write-up on request.
Publications
- Gioilli BD, Kidane TZ, Fieten H, Tellez M, Dalphin M, Nguyen A, Nguyen K, Linder MC. Secretion and uptake of copper via a small copper carrier in blood fluid. Metallomics. 2022;14(3):mfac006. doi:10.1093/mtomcs/mfac006
- Tellez M, Alsky T, Dalphin M, Flynn S, Munoz A, Ibarra D, Truong H, Linder MC, Lutsenko S, Weldy S. Purification and characterization of a small copper carrier found in mammalian blood plasma and in the urine of mice and dogs with copper overload. FASEB J. 2016;30(S1):1026.2. doi:10.1096/fasebj.30.1_supplement.1026.2 (first author)
- Nguyen K, Roque T, Carrillo H, Giolli B, Kidane T, Tellez M, Linder M. A small copper carrier in blood plasma: purification, characterization, and metabolism. FASEB J. 2021;35(S1). doi:10.1096/fasebj.2021.35.s1.04218
- Flynn S, Dalphin M, Tellez M, Fieten H, Weldy S, Muchenditsi A, Lutsenko S, Linder M. Relation of copper toxicosis in dogs and Wilson disease to the appearance of a small copper carrier (SCC) in blood plasma and urine. FASEB J. 2015;29(S1):921.2. doi:10.1096/fasebj.29.1_supplement.921.2
Education and awards
M.S., Cellular and Molecular Biology · Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine · 2019
B.S., Biochemistry · California State University, Fullerton · 2017