Martin Jonikas

Position
Professor of Molecular Biology, Howard Hughes Medical Institute Investigator
Office Phone
Assistant
Office
Thomas Laboratory, 303
Bio/Description

Focus

Biogenesis, function, and engineering of the eukaryotic CO2-fixing organelle, the pyrenoid

Research

Our laboratory seeks to advance our basic understanding of cell biology. We study the pyrenoid, a mysterious phase-separated organelle that enhances CO2 capture in nearly all eukaryotic algae. Understanding the pyrenoid is important because of its central role in our planet’s carbon cycle, because the pyrenoid embodies fundamental questions in organelle biogenesis, and because engineering a pyrenoid into land plants could dramatically increase crop yields. To accelerate progress, we are developing community resources for the unicellular green alga Chlamydomonas reinhardtii as a model system for photosynthetic organisms.

Biography

Martin Jonikas obtained a B.S. in Aerospace Engineering from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in 2004. He completed his Ph.D. in 2009 at the University of California, San Francisco working with Jonathan Weissman, Maya Schuldiner, and Peter Walter on high-throughput genetics and protein folding in the endoplasmic reticulum. In 2010 he started his laboratory at the Carnegie Institution for Science on Stanford campus. In 2016, he moved his laboratory to Princeton. He is the recipient of a 2010 Air Force Young Investigator Award, a 2015 NIH New Innovator Award, a 2016 Howard Hughes Medical Institute-Simons Foundation Faculty Scholar Award, a 2020 Vilcek Prize for Creative Promise in Biomedical Science, the 2022 International Society of Photosynthesis Research Melvin Calvin-Andrew Benson Award, and the 2023 Tsuneko & Reiji Okazaki Award from Nagoya University, Japan.

Honors & Awards

2023

  • Tsuneko & Reiji Okazaki Award, Nagoya University, Japan

2022

  • Melvin Calvin-Andrew Benson Award, International Society of Photosynthesis Research

2020

  • Vilcek Prize for Creative Promise in Biomedical Science

2016

  • HHMI-Simons Faculty Scholar, Howard Hughes Medical Institute and Simons Foundation

2015

  • National Institutes of Health Director's New Innovator Award, National Institutes of Health

2010

  • Air Force Office of Scientific Research Young Investigator Award, Air Force Office of Scientific Research

2006

  • Graduate Course Teaching Award, University of California, San Francisco

2005

  • NSF Graduate Research Fellowship, National Science Foundation

Education

  • Ph.D., Molecular Biology and Genetics, University of California, San Francisco
  • B.S., Aerospace Engineering, Massachusetts Institute of Technology

Selected Publications