azappi@lbl.gov
Education
Ph.D. in Chemical Engineering Minor in Industrial Biotechnology, Massachusetts Institute of Technology
B.S. in Chemical Engineering, University of Louisiana
Research
In the Keasling Lab, Alex is interested in producing chemicals that are difficult to access by conventional chemistry, including novel monomers, using polyketide synthases engineered for highly controlled structures. I am interested in advancing the PKS engineering platform itself, using automation and computational tools to accelerate the design-build-test cycle. My Ph.D. research in the Prather and Olsen Labs at MIT focused on engineered biological systems for sustainable polymer lifecycles through monomer bioproduction, automated biodegradation testing using diverse microorganisms, and pan-genome analyses for depolymerase prediction.