Hal Alper
Assistant Professor
Chemical Engineering
Phone: (512) 471-4417
Fax: (512) 471-7060
Email: halper@che.utexas.edu
Dr. Alper's Web site
Dr. Alper joined The University of Texas at Austin faculty in 2008. He earned his Ph.D. in chemical engineering from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in 2006 and was a postdoctoral research associate at the Whitehead Institute for Biomedical Research from 2006-2008, and at Shire Human Genetic Therapies from 2007-2008.
Dr. Alper’s research is in the area of cellular and metabolic engineering. The goal of this work is to engineer a variety of host cells to produce important chemicals such as biofuels, pharmaceuticals, and other industrial commodity chemicals. Alper’s approaches focus on the integration and implementation of genetic tools and knowledge for the design, production, and elicitation of phenotypes relevant to biotechnological processes and medical interest.
Research Interests:
- Pathway engineering for the production of novel biofuels and biochemicals
- Protein engineering and evolution strategies to cellular engineering
- Genetic approaches for improving production of value-added products and bioactive molecules in eukaryotic and prokaryotic systems
- Novel molecular biology tools for altering gene expression and regulation