Start
Jan 03, 2011 - 16:00
End
Jan 03, 2011 - 17:30
Venue
Creativity hall (Room 118) Chemical Eng.
Event Type
Speaker
Dr. Anindita Bandyopadhyay Washington University in Saint Louis U.S.A
Title
Photobiological hydrogen production in Cyanothece 51142 a unicellular nitrogen fixing cyanobacterium
Abstract: Hydrogen gas is projected to be a promising energy carrier in the near future. Consequently its production storage and use have become subjects of intense research. Molecular hydrogen generated by biological means is emerging as one of the sustainable carbon-neutral alternatives to conventional fossil fuel. Our work focuses on bio-hydrogen production by yanothece a group of unicellular cyanobacteria that can fix atmospheric nitrogen. Cyanothece possess both the nitrogenase and hydrogenase enzyme systems implicated in biological hydrogen production. A two-stage photobiological hydrogen production system was developed for Cyanothece p. ATCC 51142 by employing appropriate physiological perturbations based on knowledge from prior systems-level studies. Cyanothece 51142 exhibited exceedingly high rates of hydrogen production under aerobic incubation conditions. This is remarkable since most unicellular photosynthetic icrobes entail a complete anaerobic environment for in vivo hydrogen production. The rates of hydrogen production in Cyanothece were significantly enhanced by growing the cells mixotrophically in the presence of high CO2 or glycerol. Our studies revealed that hydrogen production in this strain is largely mediated by an efficient nitrogenase enzyme system. Addition of glycerol can lead to greatly enhanced nitrogenase activity which is also reflected in the increased abundance of transcripts associated with genes in the nitrogenase cluster. Transcriptomic comparative genomic and metabolomic studies are being carried out in six additional Cyanothece strains to elucidate the mechanism of hydrogen production in this group of unicellular photosynthetic microbes.Bio-sketch: Anindita Bandyopadhyay is a postdoctoral researcher from Washington University in Saint Louis U.S.A where she has been actively engaged in bioenergy research for the past three years. After completing her bachelors and masters degree in biological sciences from Calcutta University she joined the Indian Institute of Technology Kharagpur for her M.Tech in Biotechnology. To further pursue her interests in biochemistry cell and molecular biology she joined Purdue University Indiana in 2002 for her doctoral studies under the supervision of Professor Angus Murphy. Her PhD work focused on elucidating the functions of cell membrane components like the multidrug resistance proteins and aminopeptidase M. Her work was highly recognized in the U.S. and Europe and was published in many reputed journals like Nature and Science. For her postdoctoral studies she joined the laboratory of Professor Himadri Pakrasi at Washington University in Saint Louis where she is currently working on microbial hydrogen production. Her work on cyanobacterial hydrogen production was recently published in the journal Nature Communications.