Wai Kit Ong, Ph.D., is part of the Bioinformatics Research Group in SRI’s Artificial Intelligence Center. He is responsible for building genome-scale metabolic network models of bacteria with a focus on those found in the human gut microbiome. He is involved in maintaining and improving the model for EcoCyc, a bioinformatics database that describes the genome, metabolic network, and regulatory network of Escherichia coli.

Ong graduated summa cum laude from Illinois Institute of Technology with a B.S. in chemical engineering. He received his Ph.D. in chemical engineering from University of Wisconsin-Madison. There, he worked on building genome-scale metabolic network models of various microorganisms and developing algorithms in systems biology. He also has wet lab experimental experience culturing and genetically manipulating microbes.