Jay Keasling, CEO of the Joint BioEnergy Institute (JBEI), has received the UC Regents Innovation Award for Distinguished Lifetime Achievement. The award celebrates UC inventors and entrepreneurs who have demonstrated an exceptional spirit of innovation through the creation of new technologies, products, and services aimed at uplifting the human condition. Keasling received recognition for his distinguished career of sustained innovation and visionary research in synthetic biology.
“Synthetic biology has a very bright future. We can engineer plants to be more productive and to produce more food, we can develop fuels, and we can develop new materials,” Keasling said. “I am deeply grateful to the University of California, to my colleagues and to the many students and trainees who have made this work possible.”