M. Astolfi

Papers

Total Citations

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About

M. Astolfi is a pioneering synthetic biologist whose work centers on automating the Design-Build-Test-Learn (DBTL) cycle for microbial engineering, with a particular focus on yeast *Saccharomyces cerevisiae*. Their major contribution lies in bridging the gap between manual strain construction and fully integrated robotic workflows, dramatically accelerating the build step for biosynthetic pathway screening. Astolfi’s most-cited paper (2025, 7 citations) provides the workflow design and open-source code for a modular, automated pipeline that replaces labor-intensive, error-prone manual steps with precise, high-throughput robotics. This innovation enables rapid iteration and scaling of pathway assembly, directly addressing a critical bottleneck in synthetic biology. By making automation accessible and reproducible, Astolfi’s work empowers researchers to move from design to testing with unprecedented speed, reducing the time and cost of developing yeast strains for producing valuable compounds. Their achievements are notable for combining practical engineering with open-source sharing, setting a new standard for efficient, automated strain construction and positioning them as a key figure in the next generation of synthetic biology tool development.