Jay D. Keasling

Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, University of California, Berkeley, QB3

Papers

Total Citations

119

H-Index

About

Jay D. Keasling is a pioneering figure in synthetic biology and laboratory automation, whose work has fundamentally shaped how biological research and biotechnology are conducted at scale. Best known for his contributions to metabolic engineering — most notably the biosynthesis of the antimalarial drug artemisinin in yeast — Keasling has also made significant strides in developing the computational and robotic infrastructure that accelerates modern biological discovery. His PaR-PaR Laboratory Automation Platform (2012, 61 citations) and the subsequent PR-PR cross-platform automation system (2014, 47 citations) established open-source, biology-friendly frameworks that allow researchers to standardize, share, and efficiently execute complex protocols across diverse robotic platforms. These tools have been instrumental in democratizing laboratory automation beyond specialized facilities. More recently, Keasling's group has advanced fully integrated strain construction pipelines for yeast (2025), embedding automation directly into the Design-Build-Test-Learn cycle central to synthetic biology. His 2024 work further examines the economic dimensions of automation adoption in biotechnology, reflecting a broader vision of making high-throughput biological engineering both scientifically powerful and practically sustainable. Across these contributions, Keasling exemplifies the intersection of engineering rigor and biological innovation.