He received his PhD in Bioengineering from UCSD in 2004. Dr. Fong has expertise in systems biology and metabolic engineering with background in strain development for chemical production and computational modeling. As a graduate student, Dr. Fong completed the first-ever study that used large-scale metabolic modeling to design and implement novel chemical production into organisms. Three design strategies were identified to produce lactic acid from the bacterium, Escherichia coli. All three engineered designs produced >1 g/L lactic acid starting from 2 g/L glucose where the control, unmodified strain produced no lactic acid.