Author: Blaise Manga Enuh, Postdoctoral Research Associate in Microbial Genomics and Systems Biology, University of Wisconsin-Madison

After so many years learning how microbes work, researchers are now digitally recreating their inner workings to tackle challenges ranging from climate change to space colonization. In my work as a computational biologist, I research ways to get microbes to produce more useful chemicals, such as fuels and bioplastics, that can be used in the energy, agricultural or pharmaceutical industries. Traditionally, researchers have to conduct several trial-and-error experiments on petri dishes in order to determine the optimal conditions microbes need to produce high amounts of chemicals. Instead, I am able to simulate these experiments all from behind a computer screen…