David Savage

David Savage is a Professor of Biochemistry, Biophysics, and Structural Biology at the University of California, Berkeley, and an Investigator at the Howard Hughes Medical Institute. His lab focuses on understanding protein machinery involved in carbon fixation and compartmentalization in bacteria, particularly the carboxysome, a protein-based organelle critical for photosynthetic efficiency. Research combines biochemistry, microbiology, and synthetic biology to study CO₂ concentrating mechanisms (CCMs), enzyme engineering, and CRISPR-based genome editing tools.

Key projects include reconstituting CCMs in heterologous hosts, developing novel genome editing technologies (e.g., allosteric Cas9 variants and MISER-directed evolution), and characterizing protein assembly principles in bacterial microcompartments. Savage's work bridges fundamental biology with applications in improving photosynthetic efficiency and enabling plant genetic engineering.

Research methodologies include high-throughput screening, cryo-electron microscopy, and systems biology modeling. Recent advances include the first functional reconstitution of a bacterial CCM (Flamholz et al. 2020) and structural insights into Rubisco-carboxysome interactions (Blikstad et al. 2023). Ongoing efforts explore sulfur metabolism compartments and CRISPR-based diagnostic tools.

Labs and collaborations: Savage Lab (http://savagelab.org), with interdisciplinary connections to molecular biology, structural biology, and synthetic biology communities. Research is supported by HHMI and NIH grants focusing on energy biology and genome engineering.