BATS

Date/Time:

Apr 14, 2023 - 12:00 PM

Location:

Hosts:

Bevin Engelward

Speaker:

Title:

Genetically-encoded Reporter System for Remote Sensing

Abstract:

Cell-based biosensors can detect chemical signals important for environmental applications. Extracting information from deployed biosensors remains a challenge with existing readout technologies including fluorescence. Here, we develop cell-based biosensors that can be read out remotely, at scale, with hyperspectral imaging (HSI). We predicted the absorbance spectra of all metabolic database metabolites using density functional theory and scored their “uniqueness”. We quantified how many enzymes must be engineered into various organisms to produce each of the metabolites. We are engineering bacteria to inducibly produce the most unique metabolites that require fewest enzymes and characterizing detection with HSI.

Speaker:

Title:

Engineered Nitrogen-fixing Bacteria as a Low-cost and Low-carbon Alternative to Synthetic Fertilizer

Abstract:

Nitrogenous fertilizers are essential to modern agriculture but come with significant environmental and economic costs. Nitrogen-fixing bacteria can convert atmospheric nitrogen to biologically accessible ammonia and are an emerging alternative to synthetic fertilizers. However, the quantity of nitrogen released by bacteria in the plant microbiome is insufficient to maximize plant growth. Here, we take multiple approaches towards metabolically engineering nitrogen-fixing bacteria isolated from cereal crops to reliably overproduce fixed nitrogen.