Dr. Michael Köpke is the Vice President Synthetic Biology at LanzaTech, a company that capture carbon and transform it into sustainable products. Michael is a pioneer in synthetic biology of CO2 fixing microbes and an awardee of the Presidential Green Chemistry Challenge award for Greener Synthetic Pathways by the US Environmental Protection Agency. Michael has over 15 years of experience in the biotech field and is an inventor of more than 200 patents and author of over 50 peer-reviewed scientific articles. Michael’s work includes seminal studies providing a first genetic system and blueprint for anaerobic carbon-fixing microbes and carbon-negative biomanufacturing of chemicals with synthetic biology. Michael also led the development of the Engineering Biology for Climate & Sustainability roadmap in an effort by over 90 scientists and the Engineering Biology Research Consortium, where Michael is a council member. In addition, Michael holds an adjunct faculty position at Northwestern University and is Associate Editor at Frontiers Microbiology. He also serves in several scientific advisory roles, including for one of the US bioenergy research centers, and chaired several international conferences or workshops.