The Chemical Engineering Department is hosting a special graduate seminar on Harnessing synthetic biology for sustainable development.
Abstract:
Global warming, uneven distribution of sources, current industrial processes and consumption habits threaten the stability of human societies and ecosystems worldwide. Advances in synthetic biology have the potential to develop alternative, renewable, sustainable, and environmentally friendly resources for human society. Microbial cell factories have been successfully used in industry to create a diverse array of products, such as biofuels, food additives, cosmetic additives, and pharmaceuticals.
In this talk I introduce my work in harnessing synthetic biology for sustainable development: Engineering bacterial cell factories to produce useful materials from pollution and renewable carbon source including CO2, electrochemical CO2 reduction products and plastic degradation products. I will introduce the various genetic engineering strategies I developed and built up for microbial platforms and how I use them to facilitate biosynthesis of useful materials including bacterial nanoparticles, biofuels, food additives and pharmaceutical materials, in bacterial cell factories. I will also introduce the strategies I used to make the whole process environmentally friendly and briefly introduce my future research plan in this field.