Seminar - Photosynthesis regulation and redesign in cyanobacteria

Sponsored by UBC Department of Microbiology & Immunology

Abstract: Due to the consumption of fossil fuels, human society releases over 50 billion tons of greenhouse gases annually. Reducing carbon footprint is critical to avoid a climate disaster in the near future. Photosynthesis represents a major carbon capture process in nature and plays an increasingly important role in the emerging bio-based economy. Improving plant photosynthetic efficiency has been proposed as a key technology to meet the growing food demand, and could also be leveraged to develop carbon capture technologies. My lab uses a model cyanobacterium to study the underlying mechanism of robust photosynthesis and explore its synthetic biology applications. I will share some recent progress on how glycogen metabolism supports photosynthesis in cyanobacteria, followed by a discussion on photosynthesis redesign in cyanobacteria and how we envision transferring the learned knowledge into plants for improved photosynthetic efficiency.