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Building a sustainable future

Our mission is to provide a sustainable agricultural system for future generations. We aim to do this by harnessing open science and synthetic biology tools to simplify, miniaturize and automate engineering of photosynthetic organisms.

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Values

Access the AgSynBio Lab Manual here for more information

Community

  • We believe that anyone can make a difference
  • We believe in strong communities of collaboration
  • We believe in paying forward
  • We believe in continually striving for an equitable and just society

Research Practices

Science

  • We believe in working across disciplines to spark new discoveries
  • We believe in challenging norms and taking novel approaches
  •  We believe Science should be fun!

Team

Lab Members

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This fall we welcomed the three newest members to the lab - Tim, Ignacio and Kamal. Its been a busy semester from first brainstorming session, first gel, first ligation and building algae at genome day Screening natural variation in photosynthesis. This week we went to Oak Ridge National Lab to continue a collaboration started pre-pandemic. The efficiency of photosynthesis varies between genotypes of wild species. This is important as it offers an opportunity to identify genetic regulators of photosynthesis, which could potentially assist efforts to improve crop performance. Our collaborators have collected over 1000 genotypes of Poplar taken from the west coast of US and sequenced their genomes. We screened the photosynthetic performance of a subset of ~500. The genome sequence and photosynthesis data are then combined, and a sophisticated statistical procedure called genome wide association analysis is used to link variation in DNA to variation in photosynthesis. This week we celebrated successful completion of a 10 week summer project in our lab by undergrad extraordinare Chandra Davies. A community college student, Chandra joined us as part of the NSF Funded PRECS REU at UIUC. Thrown the task of establishing a protocol for photosynthesis measurements of the unicellular green alga Ostreococcus tauri, she managed to establish the optimal conditions including cell culture density, light intensity and bicarbonate concentrations all within a crazily short time. Her work will form the basis of further experiments that will provide insight into mechanisms of photosynthesis of marine algae which is relevant to understanding global carbon cycles. Along the way she trimuphed over all adversity - battling with nemesis contaminants embedded in cultures she received, a temperamental washing machine, torrential downpours, fiendlishly complicated gas sparging system, and autoclave that was christened with googlie eyes. She mastered the art of the oxygen electrode and progressed to working independtly, going on to present her work in both poster and oral presentations at UIUC summer research symposium. What's more is she was a great lab member and got stuck in helping out in the field. We couldn't be more proud. We wish her every success moving forward and she will be sorely missed! Lab warming! After 13 months of hard work from UIUC facilities and services we are almost ready to move in, with a few small details remaining. We were joined by Long lab members and colleagues from Morrill Hall for a small gathering to celebrate. Thanks to @a.n.b.a.r.a.s.u for the photographs! Earlier this month our team members travelled to Puerto Rico for hand planting of cowpea genotypes to study variation for the rubisco activation and NPQ relaxation. Lab 2021 Christmas lunch - big thanks for everyone's efforts and support this year Excited to see Ostreococcus transformation successfully working! The tiny green colonies have antibiotic resistance marker transformed into the genome. Next: we have assembled lot of cool #moclo plasmids which will be transformed into Ostreococcus. #microalgae #syntheticbiology #synbio #algae @ripe_project #photosynthesis Carotenoid pigments aren't just for admiring. They also play a major role in non-photochemical quenching and photoprotection. By optimizing carotenoids we can improve photosynthesis and hopefully improve crop yields. @illinois1867 #carotenoids #fall #photoprotection #photosynthesis In a PRU seminar series today our postdoc Danny (@ashudhan) presented the interesting results from our field work during summer 2021.

AgSynBio Lab

Resources / Protocols / Code / Publications

Lab 1500
Carl R. Woese Institute for Genomic Biology
University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
1206 West Gregory Drive
MC-195, Urbana, IL 61801, USA

Lab 283
Morrill Hall
Dept. of Plant Biology
University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
517-609 S Goodwin Ave, Urbana, IL 61801, USA

Contact

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