Israel Figueroa

Israel has a background in evolutionary biology, microbiology, and strain engineering. He first became fascinated with the weird and wonderful diversity of microbial metabolisms while studying hydrothermal vent microbes as an undergraduate at Harvard. He then completed a PhD in Microbiology at University of California Berkeley in the lab of Dr. John Coates, where he discovered a novel bacterium that can grow via phosphite oxidation.

Before joining MicroByre, Israel worked as a strain development scientist at Visolis and Lygos, two biomanufacturing startups developing technologies to convert renewable feedstocks into high-value products via synthetic biology and fermentation in E. coli and S. cerevisiae, respectively. He is eager to continue working on projects that advance the state of the art in biology-enabled manufacturing for the sustainable production of materials, medicines, fuels, and foods.