Monday 1st July 2024, 17:45-18:45
Innovating for a new carbon economy: Building a circular gas fermentation industry

Dr. Michael Köpke is the Chief Innovation Officer at LanzaTech ($LNZA), a public company that uses biology to capture and transform carbon into sustainable products such as fuels, chemicals, proteins, and materials. Michael joined LanzaTech in 2009 and has been instrumental in building up the company’s synthetic biology program and computational biology platform. In his current role, Michael oversees the process of innovation and technology partnerships.

Michael is a pioneer in synthetic biology of CO₂-fixing microbes and carbon-negative biomanufacturing with over 20 years of experience in the industrial biotech field. Michael holds a Ph.D. in biotechnology from University of Ulm and is an inventor of over 500 patents and author of more than 50 peer-reviewed publications in journals. Michael is also an awardee of the Presidential Green Chemistry Challenge award for Greener Synthetic Pathways.

Beyond his role at LanzaTech, Michael is an adjunct faculty at Northwestern University, council member at the Engineering Biology Research Consortium (EBRC), and board member at the International Metabolic Engineering Society (IMES). Michael also serves in several scientific advisory (SynBioAfrica, JGI, CABBI) and editorial roles (Frontiers Microbiology, Frontiers Bioengineering & Biotechnology, Metabolic Engineering Communications) and chairs the EBRC roadmapping working group, where he co-led the development of a research roadmap on engineering biology for climate and sustainability by a consortium of over 90 experts.