Affiliation: Toulouse Biotechnology Institute

Dr. Zhongpeng Guo obtained his PhD in Fermentation Engineering from Jiangnan University (P. R. China) with Prof. Guiyang Shi where he developed different metabolic engineering strategies and improved the fermentation capacity of an industrial ethanol-producing Saccharomyces cerevisiae. Then he worked as a post-doc researcher with Prof. Lisbeth Olsson at Industrial Biotechnology group in Chalmers University of Technology, Sweden. During this time, Dr. Guo performed detailed physiology studies combined with omics-analysis to better understand how yeast S. cerevisiae defend against the detrimental effects of toxic compounds present in the pretreated lignocellulosic biomass. With the better understanding of the mechanism of stress resistance of S. cerevisiae, he developed engineered yeast strains with high tolerance to inhibitors and with enhanced robustness in biomass conversion. Currently, he a researcher in Catalysis and Enzyme Molecular Engineering team (CIMEs) in Toulouse Biotechnology Institute (TBI), INSA-Toulouse. He is focusing on developing synthetic biology tools for the metabolic engineering of the oleaginous yeast Yarrowia lipolytica for the production of fatty-acid derived chemicals from renewable sources.