BTI directory

	Kate Adamala Assistant Professor, Department of Genetics, Cell Biology and Development Synthetic biology Synthetic cells, Cell-free protein expression, Engineering genetic pathways	612-624-0570 [email protected]
	Alptekin Aksan Professor, Department of Mechanical Engineering Microbial Engineering Graduate Program Bioremediation and resource recovery, Industrial biotechnology and bioprocessing, Synthetic biology Stabilization and preservation of biological materials within synthetic materials (bioencapsulation)	[email protected]
	Brett Barney Associate Professor, Department of Bioproducts and Biosystems Engineering Microbial Engineering Graduate Program Protein engineering and design, Synthetic biology	[email protected]
	Jannell Bazurto Assistant Professor, Department of Plant and Microbial Biology Microbial Engineering Graduate Program Microbial physiology and systems biology Regulatory mechanisms that allow organisms to thrive on potently toxic metabolites; bacterial physiology, metabolic stress, methylobacterium.	[email protected]
	Sebastian Behrens Associate Professor, Department of Civil, Environmental, and Geo-Engineering Microbial Engineering Graduate Program Bioremediation and resource recovery, Industrial biotechnology and bioprocessing, Microbial physiology and systems biology Microbial processes for bioremediation of (in)organic environmental contaminants and the recovery of resources from municipal/industrial wastes	[email protected]
	Daniel Bond Professor, Department of Plant and Microbial Biology Microbial Engineering Graduate Program Microbial physiology and systems biology Physiology and functional genomics of dissimilatory metal-reducing bacteria; Microbial interactions with electrodes	[email protected]
	Steven Bowden Assistant Professor, Department of Food Science and Nutrition Synthetic biology	[email protected]
	Mark Distefano Professor, Department of Chemistry Microbial Engineering Graduate Program Computational biology, Synthetic biology Molecular recognition and catalysis in the context of proteins, and the process of protein prenylation	[email protected]
	Mikael Elias Associate Professor, Department of Biochemistry, Molecular Biology, and Biophysics Microbial Engineering Graduate Program Biomanufacturing, Protein engineering and design, Synthetic biology Microbial enzymes and systems with potential use in industry or bio-remediation, specifically, the cellular phosphate uptake mechanism.	[email protected]
	Kathryn Fixen Assistant Professor, Department of Plant and Microbial Biology Microbial Engineering Graduate Program Biomanufacturing, Bioremediation and resource recovery, Computational biology, Microbial physiology and systems biology, Synthetic biology	[email protected]
	Mike Freeman Assistant Professor, Department of Biochemistry, Molecular Biology, and Biophysics Microbial Engineering Graduate Program Biomanufacturing, Synthetic biology Natural product biosynthesis, microbial genetics, targeted metagenomics	[email protected]
	Jeff Gralnick Professor, Department of Plant and Microbial Biology Microbial Engineering Graduate Program Microbial physiology and systems biology, Synthetic biology Microbial physiology, synthetic biology, geomicrobiology	[email protected]
	Ben Hackel Associate Professor, Department of Chemical Engineering & Materials Science Microbial Engineering Graduate Program Computational biology, Protein engineering and design, Synthetic biology Protein engineering technologies to develop physiological molecular targeting agents for molecular diagnostics and targeted therapy	[email protected]
	Trinity Hamilton Associate Professor, Department of Plant and Microbial Biology Microbial Engineering Graduate Program Bioremediation and resource recovery, Computational biology, Microbial physiology and systems biology Microbial photosynthesis and biogeochemical cycles; genomic, functional and evolutionary study of microbial ecosystems, ecology and evolution	[email protected]
	Will Harcombe Associate Professor, Department of Ecology, Evolution and Behavior Microbial Engineering Graduate Program Computational biology, Microbial physiology and systems biology Microbial interactions, Eco-evolutionary dynamics, Systems biology	[email protected]
	Raymond Hozalski Professor, Department of Civil, Environmental, and Geo-Engineering Bioremediation and resource recovery Microbial ecology of natural and built environments. Occurrence and control of pathogens, including opportunistic pathogens in water supplies	[email protected]
	Bo Hu Professor, Department of Bioproducts and Biosystems Engineering Microbial Engineering Graduate Program Biomanufacturing, Bioremediation and resource recovery, Industrial biotechnology and bioprocessing Development of bioprocessing technologies to convert agricultural residue and waste materials to value-added chemicals and biofuels	[email protected]
	Wei-Shou Hu Professor, Department of Chemical Engineering and Materials Science Microbial Engineering Graduate Program Biomanufacturing, Industrial biotechnology and bioprocessing Cell culture technology, tissue engineering, and metabolic engineering	[email protected]
	Satoshi Ishii Associate Professor, Department of Soil, Water, and Climate Microbial Engineering Graduate Program Bioremediation and resource recovery, Microbial physiology and systems biology Applied microbiology and biotechnology with focus on nitrogen pollution and occurrences of pathogens	[email protected]
	Romas Kazlauskas Professor, Department of Biochemistry, Molecular Biology, and Biophysics Microbial Engineering Graduate Program Protein engineering and design, Synthetic biology Green (sustainable) chemistry, enzyme modeling, enzyme design, and enzyme engineering.	[email protected]
	Alex Khoruts Professor of Medicine, Department of Gastroenterology, Hepatology, and Nutrition; Microbiology Immunology and Cancer Biology Program Biomanufacturing, Bioremediation and resource recovery, Computational biology, Industrial biotechnology and bioprocessing, Microbial physiology and systems biology Microbiota-host interactions in health and disease	[email protected]
	Linda Kinkel Professor, Department of Plant Pathology Bioremediation and resource recovery, Computational biology, Microbial physiology and systems biology Ecology and evolutionary biology of plant-associated microbes	[email protected]
	Dan Knights Associate Professor, Department of Computer Science and Engineering Microbial Engineering Graduate Program Computational biology Model host-microbiome interactions; applied methods to find patterns in microbial communities that predict and diagnose human diseases.	[email protected]
	Tim LaPara Professor, Department of Civil Engineering Microbial Engineering Graduate Program Bioremediation and resource recovery Biological wastewater treatment, wastewater microbiology, environmental microbiology	[email protected]
	Chad Myers Professor, Department of Computer Science and Engineering Computational biology, Microbial physiology and systems biology Computational methods to categorize, visualize, and model biological data and systems	[email protected]
	Tom Niehaus Assistant Professor, Department of Plant and Microbial Biology Protein engineering and design, Synthetic biology Studying metabolic biochemistry in plant and microbial organisms; focused on metabolite damage and repair associated with the TCA cycle.	[email protected]
	Vincent Noireaux Professor, Department of Physics and Astronomy Biomanufacturing, Bioremediation and resource recovery, Industrial biotechnology and bioprocessing, Protein engineering and design, Synthetic biology Cell-free synthetic biology; cell-free gene expression; gene circuits; bacteriophages; synthetic cell systems; biological physics	[email protected]
	Paige Novak Professor; Department of Civil, Environmental, and Geo-Engineering Microbial Engineering Graduate Program Bioremediation and resource recovery	[email protected]
	Christine Salomon Associate Professor, Center for Drug Design Microbial Engineering Graduate Program Biomanufacturing, Microbial physiology and systems biology Biological control of plant disease. Antibiotic resistance developed by biocontrol organisms.	[email protected]
	Cara Santelli Associate Professor, Department of Earth and Environmental Sciences Microbial Engineering Graduate Program Bioremediation and resource recovery Impact of microbial activity on geological and environmental processes	[email protected]
	Casim Sarkar Associate Professor, Department of Biomedical Engineering Protein engineering and design, Synthetic biology Using tools of biomolecular engineering, synthetic biology, and systems biology to elucidate fundamental biological design principles that underlie cellular decision making	[email protected]
	Jonathan Schilling Professor, Department of Plant and Microbial Biology Bioremediation and resource recovery, Industrial biotechnology and bioprocessing, Microbial physiology and systems biology I study microbial decomposers, most often the fungi and their biology/biochemistry.	[email protected]
	Claudia Schmidt-Dannert Professor, Department of Biochemistry, Molecular Biology, and Biophysics; Director, BioTechnology Institute Microbial Engineering Graduate Program Biomanufacturing, Protein engineering and design, Synthetic biology Exploring and utilizing biosynthetic machineries to enable sustainable synthesis of valuable compounds for use as fine chemicals, pharmaceuticals, and chemical building blocks.	[email protected]
	Burckhard Seelig Professor, Department of Biochemistry, Molecular Biology, and Biophysics Microbial Engineering Graduate Program Protein engineering and design, Synthetic biology Molecular evolution to generate novel proteins for synthetic biology and biomedical applications, study the origin and evolution of functional proteins	[email protected]
	Mike Smanski Associate Professor, Department of Biochemistry, Molecular Biology, and Biophysics Microbial Engineering Graduate Program Synthetic biology Natural product discovery, genome mining, genetic systems engineering	[email protected]
	Christopher Staley Assistant Professor, Department of Surgery Computational biology Impact of microbiota disruptions on diseases and conditions	[email protected]
	Michael Travisano Professor, Department of Ecology, Evolution, and Behavior Microbial Engineering Graduate Program Microbial physiology and systems biology Ecological and evolutionary dynamics, evolutionary genetics, microbial ecology and evolution; speciation of yeast in developing new microbial solutions	[email protected]
	Larry Wackett Professor, Department of Biochemistry, Molecular Biology, and Biophysics Microbial Engineering Graduate Program Bioremediation and resource recovery, Microbial physiology and systems biology, Synthetic biology Biodegradation, bioremediation, biosynthesis of hydrocarbons, enzymology, and computational methods for predicting reactivity.	[email protected]