Carothers Research Group
RNA synthetic biology and metabolic engineering
The Carothers Research Group combines computational modeling, CRISPR-Cas network engineering, and RNA aptamer device design for applications in synthetic biology. Our main goals are to understand biological design principles and engineer biology to produce industrially- and medically-important chemicals and materials.
About James
At the University of Washington, James is the Dan Evans Career Development Associate Professor and Associate Chair for Research and Infrastructure in the Department of Chemical Engineering. He is the Co-Director of the Center for Synthetic Biology (CSB), a member of the Molecular Engineering & Sciences Institute (MolES), and an Adjunct Associate Professor of Bioengineering.
Previously, James was a postdoctoral fellow and research scientist with Jay D. Keasling at UC Berkeley and the DOE Joint BioEnergy Institute. James was a graduate student at Harvard, where he earned a Ph.D. with Jack W. Szostak. James has a B.S. in Molecular Biophysics and Biochemistry from Yale. He has received the University of Washington Presidential Innovation Award and the Alfred P. Sloan Research Fellowship.
The Carothers group collaborates extensively with the Zalatan group in the UW Department of Chemistry. Professor Carothers has been the lead PI of >$22M of funded research. Recent work has been supported by multiple awards from the U.S. Department of Energy, the National Science Foundation, and private industry.
Outside the lab, James was a fellow of the Silicon Valley Startup Leadership Program (SLP), is a founding member of the Wayfinder Biosciences Scientific Advisory Board, and enjoys Seattle's museums, backpacking, snowboarding, mountain biking, and spending time with his family.