About

Martin Jonikas is the Squibb Professor in Molecular Biology and an Investigator at the Howard Hughes Medical Institute. His research focuses on the biogenesis, function, and engineering of the eukaryotic CO2-fixing organelle, the pyrenoid. His laboratory seeks to advance the basic understanding of cell biology by studying the pyrenoid, a phase-separated organelle that enhances CO2 capture in nearly all eukaryotic algae. Understanding the pyrenoid is significant due to its central role in the planet’s carbon cycle, its fundamental questions in organelle biogenesis, and its potential for engineering into land plants to increase crop yields. To facilitate progress, his team develops community resources for the model unicellular green alga Chlamydomonas reinhardtii.

Research topics

• Computer Science
• Environmental science
• Engineering
• Biochemical engineering
• Physics
• Biological system
• Biology
• Botany
• Biochemistry

Selected publications

• Modelling the pyrenoid-based CO2-concentrating mechanism provides insights into its operating principles and a roadmap for its engineering into crops

  Nature Plants · 2022 · 118 citations

  Senior authorCorresponding
  • Computer Science
  • Biochemical engineering
  • Computer Science

  fixed, thereby offering a framework to guide the engineering of a PCCM into land plants.

  DOI

Recent grants

• NIH Grant DP2GM119137

  NIH · $604k · 2016

• Learning principles from the pyrenoid, a phase-separated organelle

  NIH · $519k · 2021–2024

• BBSRC-NSF/BIO: Synthetic Biology: Engineering an algal pyrenoid into higher plants to enhance yields

  NSF · $750k · 2019–2023

• NIH Grant DP2GM11913702

  NIH · $1.8M · 2020

• A Mutant Resource to Transform Reverse Genetics in Chlamydomonas

  NSF · $3.1M · 2012–2017

Frequent coauthors

• Weronika Patena

  Princeton University

  77 shared

• Luke C. M. Mackinder

  Novel (United States)

  67 shared

• Robert E. Jinkerson

  University of California, Riverside

  57 shared

• Xiaobo Li

  Westlake University

  51 shared

• Josep Vilarrasa‐Blasi

  Carnegie Institution for Science

  49 shared

• Friedrich Fauser

  Princeton University

  47 shared

• Peter Walter

  University of California, San Francisco

  44 shared

• Jonathan S. Weissman

  Whitehead Institute for Biomedical Research

  44 shared

Labs

• Jonikas LabPI

Education

• Ph.D., Biochemistry and Molecular Biology

  University of California

• BS, Aerospace Engineering

  Massachusetts Institute of Technology

  2004

Awards & honors

• 2023 Tsuneko & Reiji Okazaki Award, Nagoya University, Japan
• 2022 Melvin Calvin-Andrew Benson Award, International Societ…
• 2020 Vilcek Prize for Creative Promise in Biomedical Science
• 2016 HHMI-Simons Faculty Scholar, Howard Hughes Medical Inst…
• 2015 National Institutes of Health Director's New Innovator…

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