Thomas Eng
Biologist Research Scientist
Deputy Director of Host Engineering, Joint Bioenergy Institute
Research Interests
How can microbes help build a sustainable future? Thomas T. Eng, PhD, is broadly interested in understanding the differences and similarities between microbial hosts to better engineer them for applications in biotechnology. Dr. Eng first trained with Terry Orr-Weaver and Hidde Ploegh at the Whitehead Institute for Biomedical Research at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. His early work focused on the regulation of DNA replication. His graduate training was supervised by Douglas E. Koshland at the University of California, Berkeley, where he made contributions to understanding chromosome folding. Since then, he has applied the principles of genetic analysis to modulate heterologous gene expression in bacterial hosts.
Our team at LBNL brings expertise with the microbial host to collaborate with experts in biomass development, analytical chemistry, and fermentation scaleup, addressing challenges in renewable bio-energy. Located at the Joint Bioenergy Institute (JBEI) as part of the Biofuels and Bioproducts Division (BBD), Thomas reports to and is supervised by JBEI BBD Vice President Aindrila Mukhopadhyay, PhD.
Hands On at the Bench. Dr. Eng makes time to train students at the bench. Left, Brenda Wang, UCB Class of 2019, now a NSF Graduate Research Fellow at Northwestern University. Workforce Development & Education Intern and Mentor Summer 2018, July 25, 2018. This work was part of the Berkeley Lab Undergraduate Research (BLUR) program, and was supported in part by the U.S. Department of Energy, Office of Science, Office of Workforce Development for Teachers and Scientists (WDTS).
Research Areas: Microbial systems biology, physiology, genomics, genetics, CRISPR engineering, genome scale metabolic modeling, network node analysis, renewable energy, biofuels and bioproducts, sustainability, copy number variation.
Plasmid and strain requests: please include as much information as possible; a JBEI accession number is required. LBNL will require an MTA agreement with your institution. Sorry, we cannot distribute strains that were not generated at LBNL.
Undergraduate students: UC Berkeley interested in exploring the use of multiplex CRISPR editing (such as with Cas12a/Cpf1) for rapid engineering in non-model microbes are invited to apply to work with Dr. Eng. Please send him an email. For summer internship requests, please apply through the DOE-SULI Program (please note: application deadlines for summer sessions are generally in the previous fall semester).
Candidates for postdoctoral research: Positions are contingent upon funding. Please send an email to inquire and describe your research interests.
Programs & Initiatives
Recent Publications
Related News
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The projects of 21 Biosciences Area scientists and engineers received funding through the FY24 Laboratory Directed Research and Development (LDRD) program.
Speeding up Biomanufacturing with a Turnkey Framework
Researchers from the Joint BioEnergy Institute (JBEI) developed a new framework that reduces the time of developing novel bioproducts. This new workflow, called Product Substrate Pairing (PSP), has already shown great promise for engineering strains that can convert common bacterial food sources into target molecules.
Biosciences Area FY23 LDRD Projects
The projects of 22 Biosciences Area scientists and engineers received funding through the FY23 Laboratory Directed Research and Development (LDRD) program.
