Bioinspired design of solar biotechnology systems
Cultural statement
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.
Our facilities & services
- 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
Research projects
MATHEMATICS AND Software engineering
- Next generation solar factories: Mathematical and computational systems optimisation
- Next generation solar factories: Techno-Economic/Life-Cycle analysis
- Streamline data processing from high-throughput robotic screening platform
STRUCTURAL BIOLOGY
- Cryo-electron microscopy and single particle analysis of photosynthetic supercomplexes
- Atomic resolution atlas of photosynthetic interfaces
MOLECULAR BIOLOGY
- Antibiotic production: Lysins in microalgae
- Aquaculture therapeutics in microalgae
- Monoclonal antibody production in microalgae
- Programmable cell wall disintegration
- Inducible flocculation
- Microalgal GMO biocontainment engineering
- Construction of gene regulatory circuits in microalgae
BIOTECHNOLOGY AND BIOPROCESS ENGINEERING
- High-throughput microalgae production optimisation (biomass, proteins, metabolites)
- Microalgae based therapeutics for burns treatment
- Nanocellulose extraction from microalgae
- Scaling up recombinant protein production in microalgae
- Recombinant proteins: Optimising downstream processing
- Algae-based Biofertilisers
- Protein extraction process optimisation
Publications (& Journals)
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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
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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
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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
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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