Research Focus
Dr. Skerker received a PhD in Developmental Biology from Stanford University. He is a Guest Scientist of the Biological Systems and Engineering Division at the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory and an Associate Researcher of the Energy Biosciences Institute at the University of California, Berkeley.
At JBEI, Dr. Skerker is focused on developing Rhodosporidium toruloides as a new platform organism for the production of biofuels and chemicals. His research interest is Systems and Synthetic Biology and their applications to metabolic engineering.
Projects
- Rhodosporidium toruloides: Develop tools and approaches for high-throughput strain engineering in a non-model fungal system
- Rhodosporidium toruloides: Understand the conversion of aromatic compounds derived from lignin, using a functional genomics approach, in order to improve the production of biofuels and chemicals from biomass
Featured Publications
See Google Scholar profile for complete list.
- “Functional genomics of lipid metabolism in the oleaginous yeast Rhodosporidium toruloides”, eLife (2018)
- “Rhodosporidium toruloides: a new platform organism for conversion of lignocellulose into terpene biofuels and bioproducts”, Biotechnol Biofuels (2017)
- “Metabolic engineering of the oleaginous yeast Rhodosporidium toruloides IFO0880 for lipid overproduction during high-density fermentation”, Appl Microbiol Biotechnol (2016)
- “Engineering Rhodosporidium toruloides for increased lipid production”, Biotechnol Bioeng (2016)