Dr Kaspar Valgepea

Dr. Valgepea obtained his PhD from Tallinn University of Technology for describing novel regulatory principles in Escherichia coli metabolism using systems biology. Prior to that, he was a Masters level researcher in Japan and a Visiting Scholar in the biotechnology company Genomatica Inc. His work has been published in several top journals of the field.

Dr. Valgepea is currently working at The University of Queensland where he is leading the development of an integrated systems and synthetic biology platform to expand the product spectrum of gas fermentation under the supervision of Dr. Esteban Marcellin and Professor Lars Nielsen. His research focuses on the integration of systems biology tools (e.g. proteomics, metabolomics, genome-scale metabolic modelling) with steady-state gas fermentation experiments for understanding and eventually overcoming the energetic limitations in acetogen metabolism. As the research project is in collaboration with a leading biotechnology company LanzaTech Inc., this systems-level approach has promise to enable rational metabolic engineering of acetogens for higher-value products.