Ascending Investigator grant from the Novo Nordisk Foundation.
It is an honor to have received a prestigious Novo Ascending Investigator grant in biotechnology synthesis and production. The Ascending program is aimed at supporting ambitious and original research projects and the continued development of top researchers in the Nordic region.
This grant gives me the opportunity to continue my research on determining how electroactive methanogens utilize extracellular electron donors.
Several PhD and postdoc positions will be announced soon, and hiring will happen during 2021-2022. If interested in this type of research, please contact me via email.
Here is a popular and public abstract of the application:
“We face three biotechnology challenges: producing chemicals sustainably, capturing carbon dioxide, and storing renewable energy. This proposal deals with the fundamental understanding of a technology where all three challenges are addressed concomitantly. My group recently discovered that certain microorganisms used in biotechnology (methanogens called Methanosarcinales) directly capture renewable energy and carbon dioxide, converting these into useful chemicals, which can be stored. Nevertheless, we do not understand how these microorganisms capture electrical energy directly, a mechanism which we will explore in this proposal. We will then evaluate whether we can use this method of direct energy capture inherently or whether we can engineer it to create a solution to producing chemicals sustainably, capturing carbon dioxide, and storing renewable energy.”