Interdisciplinary Seminar: Johnson Lin

The UNC-CH Department of Marine Sciences presents the interdisciplinary seminar of Marine Sciences graduate student, Johnson Lin. This event will be held on Monday, November 18th, at 12:30pm. The main location of this event will be in G201 on the ground floor of Murray Hall on UNC-CH campus in Chapel Hill, NC. The seminar will be streamed live to room 271 at IMS in Morehead City, NC and online via Zoom (Meeting ID: 637-878-850).

Seminar Title: Characterizing bacterial-algal symbiotic relationships and their roles in the production of biofuels and commercial products.

Abstract: The onset of climate change and our continued use of fossil fuels has created environmental, economic, and political problems worldwide. Although energy demand is at an all-time high, depleting limiting resources is not only unsustainable but also detrimental to the health of our planet. An alternate source of energy – microalgal biofuels – offers a promising solution to our climate problem. In order to compete with the fossil fuel industry, however, we must address the physical, chemical, and biological limitations that hamper the scale-up process. By accounting for factors like mass balance, thermodynamics, genetic engineering, and symbiotic relationships, we may be able to fine-tune and optimize the efficiency and quality of microalgal biofuel production in order to compete with conventional sources such as petroleum and natural gas. Given that biofuels produce less greenhouse gases than these conventional energy sources, it is our duty to explore the interdisciplinary scientific questions that address the industrial scale up of microalgal biofuels.