Michael Burkart, Ph.D.

SCIENCE ADVISOR & CO-FOUNDER

Dr. Burkart is a Professor of Chemistry and Biochemistry at the University of California, San Diego and Associate Director of the California Center for Algae Biotechnology. An internationally recognized expert in natural product biosynthesis and metabolic pathway engineering, his research interests include natural product synthesis and biosynthesis, enzyme mechanism, and metabolic engineering. Prof. Burkart has been a fellow of the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation and Ellison Medical Foundation, was the RSC Organic and Biomolecular Chemistry Lecturer for 2010, and was elected Fellow of the Royal Society of Chemistry in 2016. He received a BA in chemistry from Rice University in 1994. He received a PhD in Organic Chemistry from the Scripps Research Institute in 1999, after which time he pursued postdoctoral studies at Harvard Medical School.