Keith E.J. Tyo is associate professor of Chemical and Biological Engineering at Northwestern University. Keith received his undergraduate degree from West Virginia University, PhD from Massachusetts Institute of Technology and was a NIH National Research Service Award Postdoctoral Fellow at Chalmers University, Sweden. Keith’s work is in Synthetic Biology. At Northwestern, Keith co-directs the Recombinant Protein Production Core Facility and leads the ‘Global Health and Sustainability Biotechnologies’ certificate in the Masters of Biotechnology Program.
Keith’s research interests are at the intersection of Synthetic Biology, Sustainability, and Global Health. His group is focused on understanding and engineering microbial metabolism to make fuels and chemicals from renewable and waste carbon sources. His group uses genetics, metabolomics, and computational tools to guide these efforts. His second focus is on engineering protein-based biosensors that enable low-cost, point-of-care detection of important clinical biomarkers in impoverished, rural settings. His work has been published in Science and Nature Biotechnology, and has been received the NSF CAREER award.