Dr. Fantao Kong is a professor (associate) at the Dalian University of Technology (DUT). His research interests include lipid biology/biotechnology, and synthetic biology using photosynthetic microalgae as models. He obtained his Ph.D. degree majoring in Molecular Genetics at Kochi University of Technology (KUT) in Japan (2014). He completed his Ph.D. study about the production of the hydrocarbon botryococcene from the model microalga Chlamydomonas reinhardtii by expressing squalene synthase-like genes (SSLs) of Botryococcus braunii, then he worked as a postdoctoral fellow in CEA Cadarache, CNRS in France (2014–2017), where he found Chlamydomonas carries out fatty acid b-oxidation in peroxisomes using a bona fide acyl-CoA oxidase (ACX2), and peroxisomal malate dehydrogenase 2 (MDH2) connects lipid catabolism to photosynthesis through redox coupling. After that, he worked at Pohang University of Science and Technology (POSTECH, South Korea) as a researcher (2018–2019), where he focused on how transcription factor, ABC transporter, and lipid hydrolysis enzymes modulate the lipid biosynthesis and degradation in microalgae. Recently, his lab has also focused on DNA transcription factor characterization and engineering to improve algal oil synthesis, subcellular production of PHB, and other valuable bioproducts by synthetic biology in microalgae. Dr. Kong’ representative studies were recently published in Plant Cell, PNAS etc.