26 November 2018 - - US-based synthetic DNA company Twist Bioscience Corp. (NASDAQ: TWST) has appointed Jan Johannessen to the company's board of directors, the company said.

He will also serve as chair of the audit committee.

Johannessen brings more than 25 years of executive and financial leadership experience in the semiconductor industry, including expertise in operational execution, financial controls, fundraising and international business.

Prior to Twist Bioscience, Johannessen served as CEO of Conexant Systems, LLC, a semiconductor company.

Prior to his promotion to CEO of Conexant, he held the positions of chief operating officer and chief financial officer of the company.

Before Conexant, Johannessen served as chief financial officer and secretary at REC Silicon Inc., one of the world's largest renewable energy companies and a market leader in the manufacture of polysilicon and silane gasses.

Previously, he served in escalating executive roles at Lattice Semiconductor Corp., most recently as interim president and CEO. Johannessen holds a B.S. in Business from the University of Houston, and an MBA in International Business from Arizona State University.

Twist Bioscience Corp is a synthetic biology company that has developed a DNA synthesis platform to industrialise the engineering of biology.

The core of its platform is a proprietary technology that pioneers a new method of manufacturing synthetic DNA by "writing" DNA on a silicon chip.