Adam Arkin

Adam Arkin is the Dean A. Richard Newton Memorial Professor in the Department of Bioengineering at the University of California, Berkeley and Senior Faculty Scientist at the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory. He and his laboratory specialize in the systems and synthetic biological approaches for discovery, prediction, control and design of microbial and viral functions and behaviors in environmental contexts (https://arkinlab.bio).

He is the chief scientist of the Department of Energy Scientific Focus Area, ENIGMA (Ecosystems and Networks Integrated with Genes and Molecular Assemblies, http://enigma.lbl.gov), designed to understand, at a molecular level, the impact of microbial communities on their ecosystems with specific focus on terrestrial communities in contaminated watersheds. He also directs the Department of Energy Systems Biology Knowledgebase (KBase) program: (http://kbase.us) an open platform for comparative functional genomics, systems and synthetic biology for microbes, plants and their communities, and for sharing results and methods with other scientists. He is director of the  Center for Utilization of Biological Engineering in Space (https://cubes.space) which seeks microbial and plant-based biological solutions for sustained, closed-loop systems that reduce the launch mass and improves reliability and quality of food, pharmaceuticals, fuels and materials for astronauts on a mission to Mars. In addition to these, he is currently working on live therapeutics for airway infections and antibiotic resistant bacteria as these are likely to be increasing as climate changes.