Engineering bacteria for improved bioremediation and hydrogen production (LEA-SMITH_U26DTP)

Engineering biology has enormous potential to address global environmental challenges like bioremediation, biosequestration, pollutant monitoring, and resource recovery. In this project, the student will apply the cutting-edge synthetic biology tools developed by the Lea-Smith laboratory to engineer the purple bacterium, Rhodopseudomonas palustris, a species already well adapted for bioremediation of many wastestreams and which synthesises hydrogen as a by-product.

Specifically, the student will identify which compounds are being degraded and for those compounds that are poorly metabolised the student will engineer in metabolic pathways and transporters to enable degradation. The student will also engineer the electron transport pathways to improve hydrogen production. These modifications will result in strains more commercially applicable for bioremediation of wastewater and other waste products such as crude glycerol. These strains will be tested for commercial applicability in larger bioreactors with Professor Robbie Pott, a process engineer based at the University of Stellenbosch, South Africa.

The student will gain expertise in a wide range of skills including microbiology, synthetic biology, enzyme characterisation, structural biology and process engineering, which will provide excellent training for a future career in academia or industry. They will also join the £11.6 million Environmental Biotechnology Innovation Centre where they will receive further training and interact with a broad range of academics and industrial partners commercialising engineering biology applications.