BioE Graduate Seminars

Event Introduction

Lipid production optimization in oleaginous microalgae

Abstract

Microalgae have caught industrial interest as promising sustainable photosynthetic production platforms for several compounds (i.e. proteins, hydrocarbons, fatty acids) exploitable in food and feed, aquaculture, and fuel sectors. However, in order to become an economically viable platform, these microorganisms must be optimized in solar energy conversion, carbon capture and utilization, and the partitioning of metabolic fluxes.

Being light to lipid conversion one of the major causes of the high costs of bulk lipid production, how can we optimize this process? To fulfill the necessity for improved yields in microalgal lipid production, our research moves towards targeted strain selection and engineering, focusing on oleaginous microalgae. Part of our activities involve high-throughput screening techniques, which have been successfully used to select spontaneous variants with increased lipid productivity.

We are performing both gene editing by using the CRISPR-Cas system, and classic genetic engineering on enzymes and pathways involved in lipid production (i.e. Kennedy pathway). Moreover, with the ambition of developing industrial tailored microalgae, we are preparing AlgaePARC to work with these genetically-modified strains, to prove the process optimization at pilot scale.

About the speaker

Sarah D’Adamo holds an MSc. in industrial biotechnology and Ph.D. degree in biotechnology, curriculum: biochemistry and biophysics, both obtained at the University of Study of Padova, Italy. She then worked as postdoctoral fellow and research associate at the Chemistry Department of Colorado School of Mines, United States of America, following projects on redox and hydrogen metabolism of green microalgae.

She has been a senior scientist and lead scientist at Algenuity, a microalgal biotech start-up company based in England. From January 2018, she is a tenure-track assistant professor in microalgae biotechnology at the Bioprocess Engineering division of Wageningen University (WUR), The Netherlands.

She has over ten years of both international academic and industrial experience in the field of microalgae physiology and biotechnology, conducted in Italy, U.S., UK and The Netherlands. Expertise includes biotechnology, biochemistry, molecular biology, analytical chemistry, biophysics, redox reactions, photosynthesis, metabolic engineering, strain engineering, bioprocess, nutraceutical production. Main activities and interests regard microalgae strain engineering, synthetic biology, nutraceutical production, bioprocess development.