Michelle O'Malley

About

Michelle A. O’Malley is a Professor in the Departments of Bioengineering and Chemical Engineering at the University of California, Santa Barbara. She earned a B.S. in Chemical Engineering and Biomedical Engineering from Carnegie Mellon University in 2004 and a PhD in Chemical Engineering from the University of Delaware in 2009, where she worked with Prof. Anne Robinson to engineer overproduction of membrane proteins in yeast. O’Malley was a USDA-NIFA postdoctoral fellow in the Department of Biology at MIT, where she developed new strategies for cellulosic biofuel production. Her research group engineers protein synthesis within anaerobes and consortia for sustainable chemical production, bioremediation, and natural product discovery. Her work combines classical microbiology with cutting-edge tools such as genome sequencing and RNA-Seq to engineer processes underlying protein and enzyme production. Her research efforts include discovering novel enzymes from anaerobic gut fungi, metabolic engineering for enhanced anaerobic cooperation, engineering synthetic enzyme complexes for consolidated bioprocessing, and deciphering the structure-function relationship of membrane proteins. Michelle O’Malley’s contributions to the field have been recognized through numerous awards and honors, including the Presidential Early Career Award for Scientists and Engineers (PECASE), being named one of the 35 Top Innovators Under 35 by MIT Technology Review, and election to the American Institute…

Selected publications

• Expansion of the global RNA virome reveals diverse clades of bacteriophages

  Cell · 2022 · 294 citations

  PublisherOA PDFDOI

• Genomic and functional analyses of fungal and bacterial consortia that enable lignocellulose breakdown in goat gut microbiomes

  Nature Microbiology · 2021 · 245 citations

  Senior author

  The herbivore digestive tract is home to a complex community of anaerobic microbes that work together to break down lignocellulose. These microbiota are an untapped resource of strains, pathways and enzymes that could be applied to convert plant waste into sugar substrates for green biotechnology. We carried out more than 400 parallel enrichment experiments from goat faeces to determine how substrate and antibiotic selection influence membership, activity, stability and chemical productivity of…

  DOI

• Toward a Circular Bioeconomy: Designing Microbes and Polymers for Biodegradation

  ACS Synthetic Biology · 2024-06-25 · 22 citations

  reviewOpen accessSenior authorCorresponding

  Polymer production is rapidly increasing, but there are no large-scale technologies available to effectively mitigate the massive accumulation of these recalcitrant materials. One potential solution is the development of a carbon-neutral polymer life cycle, where microorganisms convert plant biomass to chemicals, which are used to synthesize biodegradable materials that ultimately contribute to the growth of new plants. Realizing a circular carbon life cycle requires the integration of knowledge…

  PublisherOA PDFDOI

• Targeted hypermutation of putative antigen sensors in multicellular bacteria

  Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences · 2024-02-14 · 13 citations

  articleOpen access

  Diversity-generating retroelements (DGRs) are used by bacteria, archaea, and viruses as a targeted mutagenesis tool. Through error-prone reverse transcription, DGRs introduce random mutations at specific genomic loci, enabling rapid evolution of these targeted genes. However, the function and benefits of DGR-diversified proteins in cellular hosts remain elusive. We find that 82% of DGRs from one of the major monophyletic lineages of DGR reverse transcriptases are encoded by multicellular bacteri…

  PublisherOA PDFDOI

• <i>Pontiella agarivorans</i> sp. nov., a novel marine anaerobic bacterium capable of degrading macroalgal polysaccharides and fixing nitrogen

  Applied and Environmental Microbiology · 2024-01-24 · 9 citations

  articleOpen access

  ABSTRACT Marine macroalgae produce abundant and diverse polysaccharides, which contribute substantially to the organic matter exported to the deep ocean. Microbial degradation of these polysaccharides plays an important role in the turnover of macroalgal biomass. Various members of the Planctomycetes - Verrucomicrobia - Chlamydia (PVC) superphylum are degraders of polysaccharides in widespread anoxic environments. In this study, we isolated a novel anaerobic bacterial strain NLcol2 T from microb…

  PublisherDOI

Awards & honors

• Presidential Early Career Award for Scientists and Engineers…
• Allan P. Colburn Award from the AIChE
• ASM Award for Early Career Applied and Biotechnological Rese…
• AIChE Division 15 Early Career Award
• DOE Early Career Award

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