Hal Alper, PhD
Assistant Professor

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Email:	halper@che.utexas.edu
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Presentation Made to Prospective Graduate Students 2008

Educational Qualifications:
Ph.D., Chemical Engineering, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, 2006
B.S., Chemical Engineering, University of Maryland, College Park, 2002

Postdoctoral Research Associate, Whitehead Institute for Biomedical Research, 2006-2008
Postdoctoral Research Associate, Shire Human Genetic Therapies, 2007-2008

Focus:
Biotechnology, Metabolic and Cellular Engineering

The goal of metabolic and cellular engineering is to endow novel and useful properties to cellular systems. Recent advances in molecular biology and genetic engineering empower metabolic engineers with an increasing ability to create any desired cellular modification. The integration of these approaches with an ever-increasing database of knowledge about these cellular systems (due in part to genomic sequencing efforts) provides an unprecedented opportunity to engineer cellular systems. Our research group focuses on the integration and implementation of these tools and knowledge for the design, production, and elicitation of phenotypes relevant to biotechnological processes and medical interest.

Using a variety of host systems including microbial (eg. Eschericia coli), fungal (eg. yeast), and mammalian (eg. Chinese Hamster Ovary (CHO) cells), we seek to develop the necessary genetic tools and methodologies for creating industrially-relevant organisms for biomolecules, biofuels, and biopharmaceuticals. To accomplish this task, traditional pathway engineering will be utilized in conjunction with novel tools for introducing genetic control (such as global Transcription Machinery Engineering, promoter libraries, and gene mutagenesis).

Overall research goals:

• To develop new strategies and tools for the engineering and cultivation of cellular systems applicable to both eukaryotic and prokaryotic systems
• To develop suitable host strains (both mammalian and microbial) for the high level production of value-added products and bioactive molecules
• To understand and engineer complex cellular phenotypes, including disease states, in an effort to identify novel genetic targets
• To develop molecular biology tools which allow for both tunable and combinatorial control of gene expression and regulatory networks
• To develop strategies for engineering cellular systems through protein engineering and evolution

Selected Publications

• Hal Alper, Joel Moxley, Elke Nevoigt, Gerald Fink, and Gregory Stephanopoulos, 2006. Engineering yeast transcription machinery for improved ethanol tolerance and production. Science. 314(5805), 1565 - 1568.
• Hal Alper, Kohei Miyaoku, and Gregory Stephanopoulos, 2005. Construction of lycopene-overproducing E. coli strains by combining systematic and combinatorial gene knockout targets.Nature Biotechnology. 23(5), 612 - 616.
• Hal Alper, Curt Fischer, Elke Nevoigt, and Gregory Stephanopoulos, 2005. Tuning Genetic Control through Promoter Engineering. PNAS. 102(36), 12678-12683.
• Hal Alper, Yong-su Jin, J. Moxley, and G. Stephanopoulos, 2005. Identifying gene targets for the metabolic engineering of Escherichia coli. Metabolic Engineering. 7(3), 155-164.
• Gregory Stephanopoulos, Hal Alper, and Joel Moxley, 2004. Exploiting Biological Complexity for Strain Improvement through Systems Biology.Nature Biotechnology. 22(10), 1261-7.

 

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