Jay D. Keasling

Divisions

Biological Systems and Engineering

• Biodesign

Biography

One of the foremost authorities on synthetic biology, Jay D. Keasling is Senior Faculty Scientist for Biosciences at the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory and the Hubbard Howe, Jr. Distinguished Professor of Biochemical Engineering in the Departments of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering and of Bioengineering at the University of California, Berkeley. He is the Chief Executive Officer of the Joint BioEnergy Institute and leads a groundbreaking research program focused on engineering microorganisms to produce biofuels, chemicals, and pharmaceuticals. 

Research Interests

• Harnessing biology to address diverse critical global challenges in the areas of renewable biomanufacturing, human health, and bioenergy.
• Engineering microbes to produce drugs, chemicals, and fuels.
• Developing foundational tools for engineering metabolism inside cells.
• Creating novel metabolic pathways to produce unnatural molecules.
• Designing robust microbial hosts for producing chemicals under a variety of industrial conditions.
• Applying these methods and tools to important societal problems, such as producing the antimalarial drug artemisinin, a variety of commodity and specialty chemicals, and biofuels.

Divisions

Environmental Genomics and Systems Biology

• Molecular EcoSystems Biology

Biography

At the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, Adam Arkin holds several positions, including senior scientist, Technical Co-Manager of the ENIGMA Scientific Focus Area, and Chief Executive Officer of the Department of Energy Systems Biology Knowledgebase. He is the Dean A. Richard Newton Memorial Professor in UC Berkeley’s Department of Bioengineering, and Director of the Center for Utilization of Biological Engineering in Space. An expert in the comparative systems and synthetic biology of microbes, Arkin is dedicated understanding the role natural and engineered microbes can play in environmental transformation and health as well as sustainable biomanufacturing.

Research Interests

Complex webs of life integrate and drive processes that affect outcomes from the individual health of a human or plant to entire planetary mineral cycles. Our laboratory leverages quantitative measurements, precision genetics, and model-driven experimentation to predict, control, and design biological function in the context of these webs. We are especially interested in understanding and ameliorating the processes that are interlinked with the radical changes our planet is and will be experiencing as climate is forced, populations grow, and pressures are placed on the resources we use to survive. We are also interested in what it might take to establish ourselves on the next planet as humanity begins to consider long term crewed missions on the Moon and Mars. Building safe, sustainable biotechnologies for environmental stewardship, health, food, and materials based on well-informed systems-level bioengineering is our main goal.

We are also committed to open, transparent, reusable and collaboratory model-driven science as exemplified through our work the the DOE Systems Biology Knowledgebase.

Divisions

Molecular Biophysics and Integrated Bioimaging

• Structural Biology

Secondary Affiliation:

Environmental Genomics and Systems Biology

• Comparative and Functional Genomics

Biography

As the ALD for Biosciences, Paul Adams oversees the Biological Systems & Engineering (BSE), Environmental Genomics & Systems Biology (EGSB), and Molecular Biophysics & Integrated Bioimaging (MBIB) Divisions, as well as the DOE Joint Genome Institute (JGI). Adams is a senior scientist who has served as Director of the MBIB Division since 2015 and as Vice President for Technology and Director of Structural Biology for the Joint BioEnergy Institute (JBEI) since 2007. He heads a multi-institutional program, which he established when he joined the Lab in 1999, that develops the Phenix software suite used by structural biologists worldwide to solve macromolecular structures. In addition, he was the Laboratory Research Manager for the ENIGMA Scientific Focus Area from 2009 to 2025 and has overseen the Biosciences activities at the Advanced Light Source (ALS) since 2011. Adams’s research focuses on the development of new algorithms and methods for structural biology, structural studies of large macromolecular machines, and development of cellulosic biofuels. He earned his doctorate in biochemistry at the University of Edinburgh and performed his postdoctoral work at Yale University. He is also an adjunct professor in the department of bioengineering at the University of California Berkeley.

Research Interests

Computational Methods Development
Much of my research is focused on the development of new algorithms and methods for problems in structural biology. In collaboration with researchers from Los Alamos National Lab, Duke University and Cambridge University we have developed a new software system with NIH Program Project funding and industrial funding, called PHENIX, for the automated solution of macromolecular structures using crystallographic and cryo-electron microscopy methods. With other NIH funding we have expanded the scope of PHENIX to include the analysis of neutron diffraction data.

Accelerator Resources for Structural Biology
As Division Deputy for Biosciences at the Advanced Light Source I help coordinate the biosciences activities and lead the Biosciences Council. An area of particular interest to me is the structural study of large macromolecular machines combining multiple experimental and computational methods.

Bioenergy Research
The need to develop carbon-neutral and renewable sources of energy has become a priority. The conversion of cellulosic (plant) material to advanced biofuels has the potential to provide a significant fraction of transportation fuel in the future. As part of the Joint Bioenergy Institute I am developing new technologies to improve the conversion of biomass to fuels. We have also developed new methods for the chemical imaging of plant call wall material.

Divisions

Molecular Biophysics and Integrated Bioimaging

• Structural Biology

Research Interests

I develop new technologies and applications for synthetic biology, with a focus on automation and the use of software to facilitate all aspects of the field from target selection to design to biosafety and intellectual property management.

Divisions

Energy Geosciences

Secondary Affiliation:

Environmental Genomics and Systems Biology

• Molecular EcoSystems Biology

Research Interests

I am a Professor in the Departments of Earth and Planetary Science and Environmental Science, Policy, and Management at UC Berkeley, and have a faculty appointment in Materials Science and Engineering. I also have appointments in the geochemistry group of Earth and Environmental Sciences, and in the Environmental Genomics & Systems Biology Division at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory. My research interests are in geomicrobiology, which is the study of how microorganisms shape, and are shaped by, their natural environments. My research group studies microbial communities, primarily using cultivation-independent approaches such as genome-resolved metagenomics, metatranscriptomics, metaproteomics and metabolomics. We work on microbial dissolution and precipitation of minerals, the structure, properties and reactivity of clay minerals and nanoparticles (many of which are formed by microorganisms), microbial ecology, and microbial evolution. Many of our projects are tied to field sites. Current study locations include the Angelo Coastal Reserve and a groundwater site in the central valley (northern California), the Rifle site and East River watershed (Colorado) and Crystal Geyser (Utah). We also conduct laboratory experiments in microcosms designed to probe ecosystem processes and bioremediation treatments.

Divisions

Biological Systems and Engineering

• BioEngineering & BioMedical Sciences

Divisions

Scientific Data

Secondary Affiliation:

Biological Systems and Engineering

• BioEngineering & BioMedical Sciences

Research Interests

We are an interdisciplinary team that focuses on understanding how distributed neural circuits gives rise to coordinated behaviors and perception. We take a two-pronged approach to this problem by conducting in vivo neuroscience experiments and developing data science tools.

• On the neuroscience side, we investigate functional organization and dynamic coordination in brain by combining in vivo multi-scale electrophysiology and optogenetics in rodents. This multi-modal, multi-scale approach provides the simultaneous breadth of coverage and spatio-temporal resolution required to determine neural computations at the speed-of-thought.
• On the data science side, we develop analysis tools for (neuro)-science, including statistical-machine learning algorithms, inference in dynamic graphical models, and data standards/formats. These interpretable and predictive tools provide enhanced insight into the generative processes that produce data.

Divisions

Environmental Genomics and Systems Biology

• Biosystems Data Science

Research Interests

The Brenner research lab has three key research interests involving computational and experimental genomics: individual genome interpretation, gene regulation by alternative splicing and nonsense-mediated mRNA decay, and prediction of protein function using Bayesian phylogenomics.

Divisions

Climate and Ecosystem Sciences

Secondary Affiliation:

Environmental Genomics and Systems Biology

• Molecular EcoSystems Biology

Biography

Eoin Brodie is a Senior Scientist in the Ecology Department of Berkeley Lab’s Earth and Environmental Sciences Area (EESA). Dr. Brodie serves as the Deputy Director of the Climate and Ecosystem Sciences Division, Program Domain Lead for Environmental and Biological Systems Sciences and co-lead of the labwide Microbes-to-Biomes initiative. At the University of California, Berkeley, Dr. Brodie is an Adjunct Assistant Professor in the Department of Environmental Science, Policy and Management. He obtained his Ph.D. from University College Dublin in Ireland and joined LBNL following postdoctoral research at UC Berkeley.

Dr. Brodie serves on the Editorial Board of Microbiome, on the Academic Editorial Board of Peer J and is an Associate Editor for Frontiers in Terrestrial Microbiology. For his role in development of the Berkeley Lab PhyloChip with Gary Andersen, Todd DeSantis and Yvette Piceno, in 2008 he was awarded an R&D100 award in addition to a Wall St Journal Technology Innovation award.

Research Interests

My research focuses on the feedbacks between microbial communities and their environment with a goal towards developing a predictive understanding of how biogeochemical cycles are regulated and how human health is impacted. The general approach can be considered ‘reverse engineering’, that is deconstructing naturally occurring microbial communities with desired properties to identify the functional roles of specific microorganisms, key inter-species interactions and critical environmental or host factors that influence the assembly and maintenance of these populations.

Divisions

Molecular Biophysics and Integrated Bioimaging

• Cellular and Tissue Imaging

Divisions

Environmental Genomics and Systems Biology

• Comparative and Functional Genomics

Divisions

Molecular Biophysics and Integrated Bioimaging

• Structural Biology

Research Interests

Protein Synthesis Understanding how the ribosome makes proteins and how these proteins fold remains a major challenge in biology. The lab is interested in how the ribosome initiates protein synthesis in humans, a highly-regulated step important for human health. The lab is also exploring proteins as they emerge from the ribosome, and how they are targeted to their final destination. Using bacterial translation, we are exploring ways to engineer the ribosome to make polymers other than proteins. To determine the mechanisms underlying protein synthesis and its regulation, the lab uses a combination of cryo-electron microscopy, systems biology, biochemistry and biophysics.