题  目：Understanding and Engineering Microbial Systems at Molecular Level for Energy and Water Sustainability  

　　报告人：Na Wei   Assistant Professor, University of Pittsburgh  

　　Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering  

　　Department of Bioengineering (affiliated)  

　　时   间：2015年5月28日（星期四），上午10:00 

　　地  点：生物所实验楼527会议室 

　　Understanding and Engineering Microbial Systems at Molecular Level for Energy and Water Sustainability 

　　Abstract  

　　The increasing demands for renewable energy and environmental contamination are two critical issues that need effective solutions to ensure a sustainable future. Microorganisms are essential for chemical conversion in nature, and they play important roles in many environmentally relevant processes, such as energy production from wastes or transformation of hazardous contaminants. It is critically important to understand and even manipulate microbial processes at the molecular level for beneficial applications in environmental engineering.  

　　This talk will present our research on harnessing microorganisms for waste-to-energy biotransformation and degradation of recalcitrant organic contaminants. The first topic will focus on renewable biofuel production from lignocellulosic waste materials. Specifically, molecular and systems biology techniques are used to understand and modify microbial metabolism at genetic level. Examples will illustrate i) the development of novel microbial systems for efficient conversion of cellulosic biomass components to biofuel through metabolic engineering, ii) identification of novel gene targets for improving microbial robustness through functional genomics approach, and iii) discovery of gene regulation mechanisms for enhanced microbial biofuel production using next generation sequencing and bioinformatics analysis. The second topic will focus on biodegradation and bioremediation of chlorinated ethenes in subsurface environments as an illustrative example. Microbial community analysis using molecular biology techniques together with process study generated new insights regarding the influence of Fe(III) reduction (an important biogeochemical redox condition) on the contaminant degradation and related microbial ecology. Underlying these studies is the combined application of molecular biology techniques, systems biology (omics analysis), microbial ecology, and engineering principles to advance the knowledge and application of environmental biological processes at molecular level. Future research directions in waste-to-energy/value biotransformation and biodegradation of contaminants of emerging concerns will also be discussed.  

　　Na Wei Bio 

　　Dr. Wei earned her bachelor of science in environmental science with highest honors at Sichuan University, China; and her M.S. and Ph.D. degrees in Environmental 

　　Engineering from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign (UIUC), where her 

　　research was focused on bioremediation and microbial community analysis using 

　　molecular biology tools. After completing Ph.D., Dr. Wei did her postdoctoral training at the UIUC’s Institute for Genomic Biology and its Energy Bioscience Institute, where her research included metabolic engineering for renewable biofuel/value-added biotransformation, synthetic biology and systems biology. Dr. Wei joined University of Pittsburgh Swanson School of Engineering in Spring 2014 as an Assistant Professor in Environmental Engineering. She is interested in understanding and manipulating microorganisms and their communities to harness microbial power in applications of environmental engineering. Please visit her website 

　　http://www.engineering.pitt.edu/Na_Wei/ for more information. 

　　欢迎各位参加！