Chao Wu is a research scientist at NREL. His research includes evaluation of the thermodynamic feasibility and metabolic robustness of engineered metabolic pathways, which is used to identify potential metabolic bottlenecks and flux control sites for enhanced biofuel productivity. The computational tools he develops help to decipher the intracellular fluxomics in response to genetic modifications and growth environment perturbations. Parts of his ongoing research develop metabolic models and estimate cellular resource allocation in response to harsh bioproduction conditions during the production of biofuels and bioproducts. In addition, he also works on the automation of techno-economic analysis of biofuel production pathways leveraging machine learning methods.

Research Interests

Computational tools development for metabolic flux analysis

Thermodynamics and robustness analysis for pathways design

Machine learning for systems biology

Biochemical process simulation and optimization

Bioinformatics and computational biology

Education

Ph.D., Biology, Tsinghua University

B.S., Kinesiology, Beijing Sport University

Professional Experience

Staff Scientist, National Renewable Energy Laboratory—Biosciences Center (2021–present)

Postdoctoral Researcher, National Renewable Energy Laboratory—Biosciences Center (2018–2021)

Senior Bioinformatics Engineer, Megagenomics Co., Ltd., Beijing, China (2016–2018)

Featured Work

Acetyl-CoA Synthesis Through a Bicyclic Carbon-Fixing Pathway in Gas-Fermenting Bacteria, Nature Synthesis (2022)

Computational Framework for Machine Learning-Enabled ¹³C-Fluxomics, ACS Synthetic Biology (2021)

Thermodynamic and Kinetic Modeling of Co-Utilization of Glucose and Xylose for 2,3-BDO Production by Zymomonas mobilis, Frontiers in Bioengineering and Biotechnology (2021)

Exogenous Electricity Flowing Through Cyanobacterial Photosystem I Drives CO₂ Valorization With High Energy Efficiency, Energy & Environmental Science (2021)

A Generalized Computational Framework To Streamline Thermodynamics and Kinetics Analysis of Metabolic Pathways, Metabolic Engineering (2020)

A Quantitative Lens on Anaerobic Life: Leveraging the State-of-the-Art Fluxomics Approach To Explore Clostridial Metabolism, Current Opinion in Biotechnology (2020)

EMUlator: An Elementary Metabolite Unit (EMU) Based Isotope Simulator Enabled by Adjacency Matrix, Frontiers in Microbiology (2019)

Fluxomic Analysis Reveals Central Carbon Metabolism Adaptation for Diazotroph Azotobacter vinelandii Ammonium Excretion, Scientific Reports (2019)

Kinetic Flux Profiling Dissects Nitrogen Utilization Pathways in the Oleaginous Green Alga Chlorella protothecoides, Journal of Phycology (2016)

Genome-Based Metabolic Mapping and ¹³C Flux Analysis Reveal Systematic Properties of an Oleaginous Microalga Chlorella protothecoides, Plant Physiology (2015)

Awards and Honors

NREL Director’s Award (2021)

NREL Key Contributor Award (2020)

NREL Director’s Award (2019)

S-class employee of Megagenomics (2017)

Future Shock Award of Megagenomics (2016)

Dongsheng Innovation Scholarship of Tsinghua University (2015)