Nathan Hillson

Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory

Nathan J. Hillson is the Department Head of BioDesign at Berkeley Lab. He received his PhD in Biophysics from Harvard Medical School in 2004. At Berkeley Lab, he currently leads the continuous development and maintenance of synthetic biology software infrastructure and the operation of DIVA DNA construction and sequence validation services. Nathan is the Principal Investigator of the Agile BioFoundry and leads its Capabilities sub-task.

Projects in the Agile BioFoundry

Featured Publications

Paul Opgenorth, Zak Costello, Takuya Okada, Garima Goyal, Yan Chen, Jennifer Gin, Veronica T. Benites, Markus de Raad, Trent R. Northen, Kai Deng, Samuel Deutsch, Edward E.K. Baidoo, Christopher J. Petzold, Nathan J Hillson, Hector Garcia Martin, and Harry R Beller. (2019) “Lessons from two Design-Build-Test-Learn cycles of dodecanol production in Escherichia coli aided by machine learning”. ACS Synth. Biol. DOI: 10.1021/acssynbio.9b00020

Nathan Hillson, Mark Caddick, Yizhi Cai, Jose A. Carrasco, Matthew Wook Chang, Natalie C. Curach, David J. Bell, Rosalind Le Feuvre, Douglas C. Friedman, Xiongfei Fu, Nicholas D. Gold, Markus J. Herrgård, Maciej B. Holowko, James R. Johnson, Richard A. Johnson, Jay D. Keasling, Richard I. Kitney, Akihiko Kondo, Chenli Liu, Vincent J. J. Martin, Filippo Menolascina, Chiaki Ogino, Nicola J. Patron, Marilene Pavan, Chueh Loo Poh, Isak S. Pretorius, Susan J. Rosser, Nigel S. Scrutton, Marko Storch, Hille Tekotte, Evelyn Travnik, Claudia E. Vickers, Wen Shan Yew, Yingjin Yuan, Huimin Zhao & Paul S. Freemont. (2019) “Building a global alliance of biofoundries”. Nature Communications, 10:2040 https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-019-10079-2

Garima Goyal, Zak Costello, Jorge Alonso Guitierrez, Aram Kang, Taek Soon Lee, Hector Garcia Martin, and Nathan J. Hillson. (2018) “Parallel Integration and Chromosomal Expansion of Metabolic Pathways” ACS Synthetic Biology

Morrell W, Birkel G, Forrer M, Lopez T, Backman T, Dussault M, Petzold C, Baidoo E, Costello Z, Ando D, Alonso Gutierrez J, George K, Mukhopadhyay A, Vaino I, Keasling J, Adams P, Hillson NJ*, Garcia Martin H*. (2017) “The Experiment Data Depot: a web-based software tool for biological experimental data storage, sharing, and visualization”, ACS Synthetic Biology.

Oberortner E, Cheng JF, Hillson NJ, and Deutsch S. (2016) “Streamlining the Design-to-Build transition with Build-Optimization Software Tools (BOOST)”, ACS Synthetic Biology.

Nathan J. Hillson*, Hector A. Plahar, Jacob Beal*, and Ranjini Prithviraj. (2016) “Improving Synthetic Biology Communication: Recommended Practices for Visual Depiction and Digital Submission of Genetic Designs”, ACS Synthetic Biology.

Galdzicki M, Clancy KP, Oberortner E, Pocock M, Quinn JY, Rodriguez CA, Roehner N, Wilson ML, Adam L, Anderson JC, Bartley BA, Beal J, Chandran D, Chen J, Densmore D, Endy D, Grünberg R, Hallinan J, Hillson NJ, Johnson JD, Kuchinsky A, Lux M, Misirli G, Peccoud J, Plahar HA, Sirin E, Stan GB, Villalobos A, Wipat A, Gennari JH, Myers CJ, Sauro HM. (2014) “The Synthetic Biology Open Language (SBOL) provides a community standard for communicating designs in synthetic biology”, Nature Biotechnology.

Ham, T.S., Dmytriv, Z. Plahar, H., Chen, J., Hillson, N.J., and Keasling, J.D. (2012) “Design, Implementation and Practice of JBEI-ICE: An Open Source Biological Part Registry Platform and Tools”, Nucleic Acids Research.

Chen, J., Densmore, D., Ham, T.S., Keasling, J.D. and Hillson, N.J. (2012) “DeviceEditor visual biological CAD canvas”, Journal of Biological Engineering.

Hillson, N.J.*, Rosengarten, R.D., and Keasling, J.D. (2012) “j5 DNA Assembly Design Automation Software”, ACS Synthetic Biology.