Joel Pastore

MicroByre

The MicroByre team makes pets out of bacteria. The vast majority of prokaryotes on the planet are not currently considered cultivable, let alone genetically modifiable. MicroByre domesticates and then genetically engineers otherwise reluctant, recalcitrant, and rebellious bacteria. We get them to eat out of our hands. With friends like these, who needs petroleum? Newly cooperative bacteria will help us replace ancient biomass (petrochemicals) with renewable biomass (lawn clippings) efficiently and economically. This isn't the synthetic biology you've read about. We don't do Escherichia coli and we don't do Saccharomyces cerevisiae. We don't do gene circuits and we don't do heterologous expression. We engineer naturally cool but standoffish bacteria to be cooperative, and thus even cooler. Diversity is strength. We take a lesson from the study of ecology: it takes a lot of different kinds of skills working together with mutual respect to make a dent in the world. We are committed to a maintaining a work environment free of harassment and discrimination. All recruitment, salary, & promotion decisions are based on business need, qualification, and job requirements with no regard to race, ethnicity, gender, sexual orientation, family or parental status, veteran or disability status, religion or belief, or age.