A warm welcome to our newest Assistant Professor, Dr. Nobuhiko Tokuriki

The Michael Smith Laboratories (MSL)  is pleased to welcome Dr. Nobuhiko Tokuriki as a new Assistant Professor in the field of metabolic engineering and synthetic biology.  This position is part of the larger BERI initiative to enhance UBC’s research expertise in bioenergy and biorefining. 

Dr. Tokuriki was born in Osaka, Japan where he received his Ph.D. in biotechnology from Osaka University, after which he was a research fellow at the Weizmann Institute of Science in Israel.  Subsequently, he was a visiting scientist with an EMBO fellowship at the EMBL in Heidelberg,  Germany, and he held a Marie Curie Fellowship at the University of Cambridge in England before coming to UBC.

Dr. Tokuriki’s outstanding expertise in the targeted evolution of enzymes to engineer new functions is a critical component of UBC’s effort to build the bioenergy and biorefining research infrastructure needed to make use of Canada’s forest biomass and to reduce dependence on petroleum.  Specifically, Dr. Tokuriki’s ability to manipulate protein structure and function is a key aspect of improving the enzymes that breakdown biomass components (such as cellulose) into building blocks for energy and chemical production.   In this regard, Dr. Tokuriki’s capabilities ideally complement existing expertise on campus in biomass production and the downstream process engineering.  His research program will also enable the engineering of biosynthetic pathways to produce novel chemicals including pharmaceuticals.

We are delighted to add Dr. Tokuriki to list of talented faculty members within the Michael Smith Laboratories.  Dr. Tokuriki’s work may be viewed at his website:  http://www.msl.ubc.ca/faculty/tokuriki