Participating Faculty
Examples of Activities and Collaborative Projects
Selected Papers
Graduate Programs and Recommended Coursework
Useful Internet Links
Did you know that:
- Photosynthesis is the main reason why you have oxygen to breathe?
- Most of the energy you use today originated from solar energy converted by photosynthesis to fossil fuels?
- The amount of solar energy received on Earth is orders of magnitude more than what we use, and if we could only capture some of that energy, we would not need fossil fuel anymore?
- The amount of carbon (CO2) fixed by natural photosynthesis annually is over 100 billion tons?
- About half of the photosynthetic productivity on Earth is due to organisms we cannot even see with the naked eye (algae and cyanobacteria)?
If you did know all of this, we have a ton more to teach you. If you did not know but are interested, we can educate you in this and in much more. Now with significant public interest in global energy resources that will not lead to net CO2 production and thereby will help in combating global warming, you can be part in helping to find solutions. You can learn about energy conversion processes in biological systems that happen on the timescale of a picosecond (10-12 s) and of days or months. You can learn about microbial fuel cells, and about how we may be able to improve them. You can be involved in “metabolic engineering” of natural photosynthetic microbes to make them more suitable for biofuel production. You can be part of efforts to use Mother Nature’s photosynthesis process for bioenergy generation or bio- and nanotechnology applications. The field is wide open, and here is a unique opportunity for involvement in truly interdisciplinary science!
At Arizona State University, we have some of the top interdisciplinary students, faculty and researchers in bioenergy. Students have the choice of enrolling in one of the degree programs in the School of Life Sciences (e.g., Molecular and Cell Biology, Microbiology or Plant Biology) or in the Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry, depending on the home of the faculty they are most interested in working with.
PARTICIPATING FACULTY AND THEIR RESEARCH TOPICS
School of Life Sciences
- Jens Appel - Hydrogen production in cyanobacteria; conversion of solar energy to biofuels
- Roy Curtiss III - Inducible cell lysis of cyanobacteria
- Thomas Day - Physiology and ecology of plant performance and distribution
- Ferran Garcia-Pichel - Microbial ecology, focusing particularly on cyanobacteria in extreme environments
- Roberto Gaxiola - Molecular plant physiology and root development and function; applications to agriculture in arid environments
- Robert Roberson - Bioimaging of cyanobacteria and of biofuel compounds within cells
- Willem Vermaas - Functional genomics of photosynthesis and respiration in cyanobacteria; solar energy conversion for biofuel production
- Andrew Webber - Algal photosynthesis; function and assembly of photosynthetic reaction centers
Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry
- James Allen - Structural and functional aspects of photosynthetic reaction centers
- Petra Fromme - Structural biochemistry and biophysics of membrane proteins
- Devens Gust - Design and synthesis of molecular devices that mimic photosynthetic energy and electron transfer
- Anne Jones - Hydrogenase; bio-inspired catalysis; biological hydrogen production
- Ana Moore - Synthesis and function of carotenoids in natural and artificial photosynthetic systems
- Thomas Moore - Solar energy conversion; artificial photosynthesis
- Neal Woodbury - Biomolecular nanotechnology applications of photosynthesis; combinatorial chemistry and single-molecule spectroscopy
Faculty from other Units with Complimentary Interests
- Stuart Lindsay (Physics and Astronomy) - Single-molecule biophysics
- Bruce Rittmann (Civil and Environmental Engineering) - Environmental biotechnology
Back to top
EXAMPLES OF ACTIVITIES AND COLLABORATIVE PROJECTS
Back to top
SELECTED PAPERS
- Wang HY, Lin S, Allen JP, Williams JC, Blankert S, Laser C, Woodbury NW (2007) Protein dynamics control the kinetics of initial electron transfer in photosynthesis. Science 316: 747-750.
- Hambourger M, Liddell PA, Gust D, Moore AL, Moore TA (2007) Parameters affecting the chemical work output of a hybrid photoelectrochemical biofuel cell. Photochem Photobiol Sci 6: 431-437.
- Yeager CM, Kornosky JL, Morgan RE, Cain EC, Garcia-Pichel F, Housman DC, Belnap J, Kuske CR (2007) Three distinct clades of cultured heterocystous cyanobacteria constitute the dominant N2-fixing members of biological soil crusts of the Colorado Plateau, USA. FEMS Microbiol Ecol 60: 85-97.
- Rittmann BE (2006) Microbial ecology to manage processes in environmental biotechnology. Trends Biotechnol 24: 261-266.
- Subramanyan R, Jolley C, Brune DC, Fromme P, Webber AN (2006) Characterization of a novel photosystem I-LHCI supercomplex isolated from Chlamydomonas reinhardtii under anaerobic (State II) conditions. FEBS Lett 580: 233-238.
- van de Meene AML, Hohmann-Marriott MF, Vermaas WFJ, Roberson RW (2006) The three-dimensional structure of the cyanobacterium Synechocystis sp. PCC 6803. Arch Microbiol 184: 259-270.
Back to top
GRADUATE PROGRAMS AND RECOMMENDED COURSEWORK
Graduate Programs:
PhD in Molecular and Cellular Biology
PhD in Microbiology
PhD in Plant Biology
Graduate Programs outside of SOLS:
PhD in Biochemistry
PhD in Civil and Environmental Engineering
Selected Graduate Courses:
BCH 461/462 General Biochemistry
BCH 563 Biophysical Chemistry
BCH 568/PLB 558 Molecular Mechanisms of Photosynthesis
BIO 502 Transmission Electron Microscopy
BIO 543 Molecular Genetics
BIO 550 Advanced Cell Biology
MCB 540 Functional Genomics
MIC 444/445 Techniques in Molecular Biology / Genetics and Lab
MIC 461 Geomicrobiology
PLB 440 Photobiology
PLB 558 Molecular Mechanisms of Photosynthesis
Back to top
USEFUL INTERNET LINKS
ASU Center for Bioenergy and Photosynthesis
Photosynthesis and the Web
Back to top
