#10 Greening Synbio with Microalgae
Tuesday 16th July 2019, Sofi's Southside, Edinburgh.
The algal biorefinery allows using renewable energy to make bio-production an economically viable option. Microalgae have immense potential to be used as cell factories that can harness sunlight for the production of high-value chemicals, recombinant proteins, enzymes, lipids, hydrogen and biofuels. In this session, our speakers will discuss the upcoming field of developing resources and tools for the application of synthetic biology processes to microalgae.
Dr Alistair McCormick
Lecturer in plant molecular physiology and synthetic biology, Synthsys and institute of molecular plant sciences, University of Edinburgh
Alistair uses a combination of biochemical and physiological approaches to understand photosynthetic carbon capture and primary metabolism in higher plants and micro-algae.
Alistair completed his PhD in Biological Sciences at the University of KwaZulu Natal in the year 2007 and followed it with an NRF research fellow at the University of Oxford. He joined the University of Edinburgh after completing two postdoctoral research works, one at the University of Cambridge and the second one at the John Innes Centre.
Dr Attila Molnar
Chancellor’s fellow, University of Edinburgh
Attila is studying the mechanism of small RNA (sRNA) synthesis and their role in epigenetic modifications in systems including plants and viruses.
Attila completed his PhD at the Eotvos Lorand University in the year 2003. He joined the University of Edinburgh after completing his postdoctoral work, first at the Sainsbury Laboratory of John Innes centre and then at the University of Cambridge