Bioinspired design of solar biotechnology systems
Our vision is to transform global industries with solar-driven biotechnologies that secure planetary sustainability and resilience.
From Covid to Climate Change, the international community is faced with a series of tough health challenges that are tightly coupled to economic, social and environmental factors.
Covid 19 and evolving ‘superbug’ threats highlight the importance of robust industrial therapeutic production systems that can be rapidly scaled to meet emerging medical need at a cost accessible across all sectors of society from rich to poor.
In parallel, the increase in the intensity of Climate Change is threatening the food and water security for our expanding population, causing increased disease vector spread and impacting ecosystem security.
Our vision is to transform global industries with solar-driven biotechnologies that secure planetary sustainability and resilience. Our mission is to revolutionise the production of medicines, bio-medical products, foods, fuels, nano-materials and ecosystem services through bio-inspired solar-driven technology platforms.
These solar biotechnology platforms and industries are being designed to tap into the huge energy of the sun first to drive the production of high value pharmaceuticals (e.g. protein biologics, novel antibiotics, monoclonal antibodies), bio-actives (e.g. anti-microbials, anti-parasitics, anti-fungals, bio-herbicides) and medicated animal feeds, before expanding into the production of novel biopolymers and medical nanomaterials, foods, fuels and clean water to support global health. This ambitious and leading international program is made possible through carefully designed scientific and business innovation, and our strong multidisciplinary team.
Our team as part of the Centre for Solar Biotechnology contributes to linking the IMBs expertise in health to all five of UQ research impact themes.
Group leader
Professor Ben Hankamer
Group Leader, Bioinspired design of solar biotechnology systems
+61 7 334 62012
b.hankamer@imb.uq.edu.au
UQ Researcher Profile
Vision
Transform global industries with solar-driven biotechnologies that secure planetary sustainability and resilience.
Mission
Revolutionise the production of medicines, bio-medical products, foods, fuels, nano-materials and ecosystem services through bio-inspired solar-driven technology platforms.
We have a welcoming, friendly and multi-lingual international research team that has to date supervised over 120 students from all over the world. Our close connections with our national and international research and industry partners provide students with access to a wide range of fundamental and applied science projects (see below for details of current opportunities). With ready access to the subtropical Australian coastline, Brisbane is a beautiful place to live and work. The IMB and Centre for Solar Biotechnology facilities offer an exceptional and supportive research environment for students to advance to their education and career and to connect with other research and industry partners.
The University of Queensland (UQ) provides an excellent research environment, being regularly ranked in the top 50 world universities, top 2-5 Australian Universities and ERA 5 in Biological Sciences, Plant Biology, Environmental Biotechnology, Environmental Engineering and Medical Health Sciences.
The Institute for Molecular Bioscience (UQ) is one of Australia’s premier research institutes providing a strongly supportive environment. The IMB is currently focusing on its core and emerging strengths through the development of a selected set of centres including the Centre for Solar Biotechnology.
The Centre for Solar Biotechnology (CSB), launched in May 2017, is an excellent research environment for this project as it has grown to include 30 international teams across Europe, the US and Australasia, with experience ranging from genome sequencing to demonstration-scale systems development. These CSB facilities include algae cultivation suites, molecular biology protocols (e.g. CRISPR, nuclear and chloroplast expression), robotic screening systems, flow cytometry, LCMS, advanced microscopy (laser light sheet and advanced cryo-electron microscopy), pharmaceutical and peptide chemistry, an advanced microalgae pilot plant (2, 10, 20, 200 and 2000L production systems) and sophisticated integrated Techno-Economic and Life Cycle Analysis capabilities.
- Microalgae cultivation lab with access to world class technologies/facilities
- Microalgae pilot plant with outdoor and indoor (PC2 certified) production facilities
- Molecular Biology: genetic engineering of the nuclear and chloroplast genome using cutting edge technologies (e.g. CRISPR) to produce robust production strains
- Protein expression pipeline from gene design to final product
- Structural Biology: Cryo-EM, Electron tomography
- Cryo-preservation
- Bioprocess engineering
- Technoeconomic analysis
- Life cycle analysis
Carrera-Pacheco, Saskya E., Hankamer, Ben and Oey, Melanie (2020). Light and heat-shock mediated TDA1 overexpression as a tool for controlled high-yield recombinant protein production in Chlamydomonas reinhardtii chloroplasts. Algal Research, 48 101921, 101921. doi: 10.1016/j.algal.2020.101921
Light guide systems enhance microalgae production efficiency in outdoor high rate ponds
Sivakaminathan, Shwetha, Wolf, Juliane, Yarnold, Jennifer, Roles, John, Ross, Ian L., Stephens, Evan, Henderson, Garry and Hankamer, Ben (2020). Light guide systems enhance microalgae production efficiency in outdoor high rate ponds. Algal Research, 47 101846, 101846. doi: 10.1016/j.algal.2020.101846
Musa, Mutah, Wolf, Juliane, Stephens, Evan, Hankamer, Ben, Brown, Richard and Rainey, Thomas J. (2020). Cationic polyacrylamide induced flocculation and turbulent dewatering of microalgae on a Britt Dynamic drainage jar. Separation and Purification Technology, 233 116004, 116004. doi: 10.1016/j.seppur.2019.116004
Charting a development path to deliver cost competitive microalgae-based fuels
Roles, John, Yarnold, Jennifer, Wolf, Juliane, Stephens, Evan, Hussey, Karen and Hankamer, Ben (2020). Charting a development path to deliver cost competitive microalgae-based fuels. Algal Research, 45 101721, 101721. doi: 10.1016/j.algal.2019.101721