Aindrila Mukhopadhyay

Divisions

Biological Systems and Engineering

• Biodesign

Secondary Affiliation:

Environmental Genomics and Systems Biology

• Molecular EcoSystems Biology

Biography

Aindrila Mukhopadhyay received an MSc in chemistry from the Indian Institute of Technology, Bombay, and has a PhD in organic chemistry from the University of Chicago.  She is a senior scientist and a principal investigator in the Ecosystems and Networks Integrated with Genes Molecular Assemblies (ENIGMA) (https://enigma.lbl.gov) Scientific Focus Area. Mukhopadhyay leads a multidisciplinary team to study stress response in bacteria using microbiological, biochemical, and systems biology tools. Additionally, she is the Vice President of the Fuels Synthesis Division and the Director of the Host Engineering group at the Joint BioEnergy Institute.
Her group develops tools of engineering E. coli and S. cerevisiae strains, and specifically focuses on developing robust strains that show high tolerance and productivity during biofuels and chemicals production.

Research Interests

Dr. Mukhopadhyay’s work is focused on understanding membrane transport, signaling, stress response and tolerance phenotypes in microbial systems. She studies both engineered and environmental microbes. She utilizes a wide variety of microbiological, biochemical and systems biology tools to examine environmentally important organisms such as sulfate and metal reducing bacteria as well as cyanobacteria. She has specific interest in signaling mechanisms in novel non-model organisms like Pseudomonas stuzeri, Desulfovibrio vulgaris and Microcoleus vaginatus and has conducted detailed studies in model organisms such as Agrobacterium tumefaciens. She develops tools, and uses host engineering and protein engineering strategies, to improve the production of fuel and chemicals production, and conduct bioremediation, using model microbes such as Escherichia coli, Corynebacterium glutamicum and Saccharomyces cerevisiae.