Biotech Tool Providers

And they need to engineer the organisms' circadian rhythms to someday produce organisms that work around the clock making a fuel or chemical. Natural Synechocystis 6803, for instance, performs a yeoman's task of producing and storing energy molecules during the day through photosynthesis, but at night, it uses a different set of metabolisms to consume the stored energy.The natural circadian rhythm has to be rewired to make a biofuel 24 hours a day.

Zhang's research includes developing gene expression tools, new chemical biosynthetic pathways and circadian control tools for cyanobacteria."I'm confident that in two or three years we will have more potent tools to engineer gene expression levels and timing,Breakthrough Could Make Electronics Smaller and Better which will speed up the process more accurately and efficiently," he says.Also, his group has been working to develop dynamical control systems in microbes that function like meters and valves in a traditional chemical production plant – the meters calculate pressure and flow, and the valves control them.

"It's a biological version of the valve-and-meter model to control the flow of metabolites that make the production of fuel and chemicals more efficiently," he says.Following is a list of 20 current or former CEOs of life sciences tools and technologies providers who led their companies for at least part of 2012, ranked by their "total compensation" last year. Total compensation goes beyond salary to include bonuses, stock awards, stock option awards, nonequity incentive plan compensation, and all other sources of compensation. For each CEO ranked, the list offers 2012 and 2011 compensation, the percentage change between the amounts.