Mário T. Murakami

Keynote lecture Monday, 1 June 2026

Title

Connecting fundamental discoveries from microbial carbohydrate metabolism to biotechnological platforms for advanced biorefineries

Bio

Mario Murakami serves as Director of the Brazilian Biorenewables National Laboratory (LNBR) at the Brazilian Center for Research in Energy and Materials (CNPEM) and is the current President of the National Technical Commission on Biosafety (CTNBio). He holds a PhD in molecular biophysics from UNESP, complemented by research experience at Hamburg University/DESY and postdoctoral fellowships at Rutgers University and UNESP/Butantan. Dr. Murakami leads multidisciplinary teams working across structural biology, enzymology, synthetic biology, meta-omics, bioprocess scale-up, and sustainability assessment, thus covering the entire biotechnology pipeline.

His scientific contributions have elucidated molecular mechanisms in enzymes with biomedical and industrial significance, with findings published in journals such as Nature, Science, Nature Chemical Biology, PNAS, and Nature Communications. In his early research, advanced knowledge of how macromolecular therapeutic agents under clinical trials modulate blood coagulation factors. Recently, Murakami has been focusing on the elucidating microbial mechanisms associated with carbohydrate metabolism, resulting in the discovery of multiple novel enzyme families that might contribute to the bioeconomy and ecological transition.

He has overseen national infrastructure and innovation programs linking fundamental science to applied biotechnology, including enzyme production platforms for Brazilian biorefineries. Murakami is an affiliated member of the Brazilian Academy of Sciences and recipient of the EMBRAPII Innovation Researcher Award.

His roles at LNBR and CTNBio directly contributes to the Brazil´s transition toward a sustainable bio-based economy by translating biodiversity and biomass potential into competitive biotechnological innovations.