A prestigious early-career award from the U.S. Department of Energy will help a University of Wisconsin–Madison researcher and his team create new modeling tools that will help optimize the microbial production of biofuels and bioproducts.

The human gut is teeming with microbes, each interacting with one another in a mind-boggling network of positive and negative exchanges. Some produce substances that serve as food for other microbes, while others produce toxins – antibiotics – that kill their neighbors.

The complexity of life makes it difficult to study. In biochemistry, there are often just too many processes and reactions taking place in a cell for humans to wrap their heads around. What helps biochemists make sense of it all?  Cue computational biology and biochemistry.