Yu WANG

Yu Wang is a research fellow at theTianjin Institute of Industrial Biotechnology (TIB), Chinese Academy of Sciences. During his M.S. and Ph.D. study supervised by Prof. Ping Xu, Dr. Wang mainly concentrated on the bioconversion and utilization of glycerol, the by-product of the biodiesel industry. He engineered microbial cell factories for efficient bioproduction of 1,3-propanediol, lactic acid, and other biochemicals using glycerol, where some of the developed technologies have been industrialized. After joining TIB, he began to take on a harder challenge: bioconversion and utilization of methanol.

Technologies for transforming an industrial microbe into an efficient methanol utilizer have been developed. His work provides scientific and technological support for the carbon-neutral and carbon-negative modes of material production and the implementation of China’s “carbon peak and neutrality” strategy.

After years of research, Dr. Wang proposed a C1 biomanufacturing route that uses energy-rich C1 compound methanol (produced from CO2 and green energy) as feedstock and engineered microbe as a catalyst for green and low-carbon material production. In order to improve the methanol utilization efficiency, Wang developed advanced genome editing and multi-gene regulation technologies and transformed the industrial microbe Corynebacterium glutamicum into a methanol-tolerant bacterial strain capable of producing amino acids from methanol. 

“My research provides efficient technologies for engineering microbial strains for methanol bioconversion and utilization and lays the foundation for the development of C1 biomanufacturing," Dr. Wang said.

His current research focuses on addressing the scientific and technological challenges in methanol bioconversion that will promote the industrial implementation of C1 biomanufacturing.