Research Focus
Taek Soon Lee earned a B.S. in Chemistry at Seoul National University (Korea) and a Ph.D. in Chemistry at Stanford University in 2006 studying type II aromatic polyketide synthases with Professor Chaitan Khosla. After a postdoctoral training at University of California with Professor Jay D. Keasling, Dr. Lee became a Scientist at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory in 2008 and joined as a Director of Metabolic Engineering at the Joint BioEnergy Institute (JBEI). Dr. Lee is currently a Staff Scientist at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory and Director of Pathway and Metabolic Engineering at JBEI.
Dr. Lee’s research group is focusing on identifying potential drop-in biofuels and building and optimizing the metabolic pathway to produce these target fuels in microbes. Our major target fuels are isoprenoid-based compounds that can be alternative to gasoline, jet, and diesel fuels. To improve fuel production titer, rate, and yield (TRY), we study the producing host and fuel biosynthesis pathway intensively using various functional genomics tools such as targeted proteomics, metabolomics, and transcriptomics, and engineer the metabolic pathway in the producing host using synthetic biology tools and systems biology.
Projects
- Discovery of novel hydrocarbon biochemistries
- Optimization of hydrocarbon biosynthetic pathways
- Engineering of isoprenoid pathway for various biofuels and bioproducts production
- Multi-Omics guided metabolic pathway engineering
Featured Media
JBEI Scientists Unravel Omics Data Using Systems Biology-Based Workflow To Improve Biofuels Productivity
JBEI Invention Leads to More Efficient Biofuel Production for Industrial Application
E. coli Bacteria Engineered to Eat Switchgrass and Make Transportation Fuels
Joint BioEnergy Institute Scientists Identify New Microbe-Produced Advanced Biofuel as an Alternative to Diesel Fuel
Featured Publications
- “Engineering Saccharomyces cerevisiae for isoprenol production”, Metabol. Eng. (2021)
- “Efficient production of oxidized terpenoids via engineering fusion proteins of terpene synthase and cytochrome P450”, Metabol. Eng. (2021)
- “An automated workflow to screen alkene reductases using high-throughput thin layer chromatography”, Biotechnology for Biofuels (2020)
- “Optimization of the IPP-bypass mevalonate pathway and fed-batch fermentation for the production of isoprenol in Escherichia coli”, Metabol. Eng. (2019)
- “Redirecting metabolic flux via combinatorial multiplex CRISPRi-mediated repression for isopentenol production in E. coli” ACS Synth Biol. (2019)
- “Renewable production of high density jet fuel precursor sesquiterpenes from Escherichia coli”, Biotechnology for Biofuels (2018)
- “Integrated Analysis of Isopentenyl pyrophosphate (IPP) Toxicity in Isoprenoid-producing Escherichia coli”, Metabol. Eng. (2018)
- “Towards industrial production of isoprenoids in Escherichia coli: lessons learned from CRISPR-Cas9 based optimization of a chromosomally integrated mevalonate pathway”, Biotechnol Bioeng, (2017)
- “Autonomous control of metabolic state by a quorum sensing (QS)-mediated regulator for bisabolene production in engineered coli”, Metabol. Eng. (2017)
- “High-throughput enzyme screening platform for the IPP-bypass mevalonate pathway for isopentenol production”, Metabol Eng. (2017)
- “Production of jet fuel precursor monoterpenoids from engineered Escherichia coli”, Biotech. Bioeng. (2017)
- “Characterizing strain variation in engineered E. coli using a multi-omics based workflow”, Cell Systems (2016)
- “Isopentenyl diphosphate (IPP)-bypass mevalonate pathways for isopentenol production”, Metabol. Eng. (2016)
- “Metabolic engineering for the high-yield production of isoprenoid-based C5 alcohols in E. coli”, Sci. Rep. (2015)
- “Principal component analysis of proteomics (PCAP) as a tool to direct metabolic engineering”, Metabol. Eng. (2015)
- “An auto-inducible mechanism for ionic liquid resistance in microbial biofuel production”, Nature Communications (2014)
- “Correlation analysis of targeted proteins and metabolites to assess and engineer microbial isopentenol production”, Biotech. Bioeng. (2014)
- “Engineering dynamic pathway regulation using stress-response promoters”, Nature Biotech. (2013)
- “Metabolic Engineering of Escherichia coli for Limonene and Perillyl Alcohol Production”, Metabol. Eng. (2013)
- “Engineering of L-tyrosine oxidation in Escherichia coli and microbial production of hydroxytyrosol”, Metabol. Eng. (2012)
- “BglBrick vectors and datasheets; a synthetic biology platform for gene expression”, J. Biol. Eng. (2011)
- “Identification and microbial production of a terpene-based advanced biofuel”, Nature Communications (2011)