Jay Keasling Named 2025 Department of Energy/National Academy of Inventors Innovator of the Year

The U.S. Department of Energy’s (DOE’s) Office of Technology Commercialization (OTC), in partnership with the National Academy of Inventors (NAI), honored Jay Keasling, senior faculty scientist at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (Berkeley Lab) and CEO of the Joint BioEnergy Institute (JBEI), with the 2025 OTC/NAI Innovator of the Year Award. The honor is awarded each year to one person chosen from all employees of the Department of Energy, its 17 national laboratories, and other DOE sites, who has translated research into tangible impacts that have benefited society at large.

Keasling accepted the award June 24 at the annual meeting of the NAI in Atlanta, GA.

One of the foremost authorities on synthetic biology, Keasling, who is a scientist in Berkeley Lab’s Biosciences Area, leads a groundbreaking research program focused on engineering microorganisms to produce advanced biofuels and chemicals. He is also a prolific inventor and active entrepreneur. 

He holds a total of 75 issued patents; 43 of his patents and patent applications are based on DOE-funded research. 

His innovations have focused on engineering microbes using polyketide synthases (PKSs) as well as on engineering yeast to produce natural products. PKSs have been traditionally studied for the production of pharmaceuticals, but Keasling has used them as an extraordinarily effective retrosynthesis platform for the bio-production of products – from biofuels and commodity chemicals to higher value fine and specialty chemicals. These include energy-dense fuel molecules for aviation and rocketry, precursors to polymers that could meet highly demanding industry requirements, polymers for infinitely recyclable plastics, pigments, agricultural insecticides and herbicides, food and food additives, and personal products, among other applications. In short, his work has opened up a whole new world of applications for synthetic biology.

Keasling’s PKS patent portfolio multiplies the number of new and drop-in molecules that can be accessed through biology. Through this platform, he has produced molecules that have never been made before as well as those that are economically out-of-reach for synthetic chemistry.

Keasling is also an  entrepreneur, founding or co-founding 12 startups, including:

These 12 startups have raised more than $2.37 billion dollars in funding, employed 1,500 people in the U.S., and developed significant resource-sustaining products. One startup alone has created and commercialized ingredients that are used by hundreds of millions of people, in products made by more than 3,000 top global brands. In addition, many other startups have come out of technologies from his lab, including Ansa Biotechnologies and Berkeley Yeast, and former students have gone on to launch startups like GigaCrop and Future Bio. 

Keasling has also been a champion of technology transfer and entrepreneurship at JBEI and Berkeley Lab. He established a unique and highly effective tech transfer model, provided funding for entrepreneurship training for JBEI researchers, led Berkeley Lab fireside chats with successful entrepreneurs, and encouraged and mentored dozens of up and coming startup founders.

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Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (Berkeley Lab) is committed to groundbreaking research focused on discovery science and solutions for abundant and reliable energy supplies. The lab’s expertise spans materials, chemistry, physics, biology, earth and environmental science, mathematics, and computing. Researchers from around the world rely on the lab’s world-class scientific facilities for their own pioneering research. Founded in 1931 on the belief that the biggest problems are best addressed by teams, Berkeley Lab and its scientists have been recognized with 16 Nobel Prizes. Berkeley Lab is a multiprogram national laboratory managed by the University of California for the U.S. Department of Energy’s Office of Science.

DOE’s Office of Science is the single largest supporter of basic research in the physical sciences in the United States, and is working to address some of the most pressing challenges of our time. For more information, please visit energy.gov/science.