Online Seminar
Next Seminar #55 - April 11th, 2024 4PM CET
Estel Rueda Hernandez (Technical University of Catalonia, Spain)
Can cyanobacteria meet the bioplastics production challenge? - An environmental and economic perspective.
The urgency to replace conventional plastics with sustainable alternatives is evident. Bio-based polymers, especially PHAs (polyhydroxyalkanoates), offer a promising solution to reduce fossil resource dependency and manage plastic waste challenges. In this context, cyanobacteria offer a promising solution as they can produce, PHAs autotrophically using inorganic carbon sources (CO2 or HCO3-) and sunlight. Cyanobacteria utilize photosynthesis to produce polyhydroxyalkanoates (PHA), particularly polyhydroxybutyrate (PHB), and other co-polymers if supplemented with organic carbon sources. PHAs production in cyanobacterial cells is induced by nutrient starvation after initial growth in a nutrient-rich medium. During the accumulation phase, different strategies (e.g. salinity increase, darkness, addition of organic carbon, etc.) to enhance PHAs accumulation can be applied. In this context, the use of wastewater, instead of standard growth media, to cultivate cyanobacteria and produce PHB, has been seen as a good strategy to reduce production costs. Despite the apparent advantages of this process, there is yet no industrial plant producing PHAs using cyanobacteria.
In this seminar, we will analyze a hypothetical cyanobacteria PHB production industrial plant, in terms of the environmental impact and the costs of the process. Different scenarios will be analyzed, including different nutrient sources (e.g. wastewater and standard growth medium BG-11) and different contents of PHB contents in the biomass.
The main aim of this study is to detect the weakest parts of the process in terms of sustainability and to evaluate the minimum PHB productivity that should be achieved to make PHB production with cyanobacteria economically viable. Finally, taking these results in mind, new strategies necessary to fully unlock the industrial-scale production of this looking-forward approach will be discussed.
The presentation will cover part of what may be found here:
Rueda, E., Senatore, V., Zarra, T., Naddeo, V., García, J., & Garfí, M. 2023. Life cycle assessment and economic analysis of bioplastics production from cyanobacteria. Sustainable Materials and Technologies, 35. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.susmat.2023.e00579
Upcoming talks in 2024
May 2024 - No Seminar
June 13th, 2024 (4PM CET) - tba
July 2024 - Summer Break
August 2024 - Summer Break
September 12th, 2024 (4PM CET) - Tina Domínguez Martín (University of Córdoba, Spain)
October 10th, 2024 (4PM CET) - Berat Z. Haznedaroglu (Boğaziçi University)
November 14th, 2024 (4PM CET) - Katja Bühler (Helmholtz Centre for Environmental Research, Germany)
December 12th, 2024 (4PM CET) - Anika Wiegard (Heinrich Heine University, Germany)
Previous Speaker
Pilot (2020)
Felice Mastroleo (SCK CEN, Belgium) | Running a photobioreactor in space for the production of oxygen and edible spirulina biomass
Jörn Petersen (Leibniz Institute DSMZ, Germany) | Biodiversity in Culture - Metagenomics, Metabolomics and the cyanobacterial Tree of Life
Kathrin Rousk (University of Copenhagen, Denmark) | Cyanobacterial nitrogen fixation in pristine ecosystems: Uncovering the climatic, ecological, and molecular control mechanisms
Season 1 (2021)
Sonia Chamizo (University of Almeria, Spain) | Biocrust cyanobacteria as a tool for restoration of degraded dryland soils
Florian Rudroff (Technical University Vienna, Austria) | Photo-Biocatalysis goes green and blue
Nathan Chrismas (Marine Biological Association, UK) | Comparative genomics of polar cyanobacteria
Kirstin Gutekunst (University of Kassel, Germany) | Glycolytic shunts replenish the Calvin-Benson-Bassham cycle as anaplerotic reactions in transition states in the cyanobacteria Synechocystis sp. PCC 6803
Marc Nowaczyk (Ruhr University Bochum, Germany) | Structural insights into photosystem II assembly
Moritz Koch (University of British Columbia, Canada) | Cyanobacterial cell factories – can we transform our industry towards sustainability?
Michelle Gehringer (Technical University of Kaiserslautern, Germany) | How Cyanobacteria changed the WO2rld
Robert Kourist (Technical University Graz, Austria) | Photosynthesis-driven biocatalytic redox reactions
Dmitry Shvarev (University of Osnabrück, Germany) | Multiple roles of tripartite transporters in cyanobacteria
David Russo (Friedrich Schiller University Jena, Germany) | Exploring cyanobacterial secretion for ecology and biotechnology
Timo Niedermeyer (Martin-Luther-University Halle-Wittenberg, Germany) | From well-known to unknown cyanotoxins: Microcystins as leads for drug substances and the identification of the novel cyanotoxin Aetokthonotoxin
Elisabeth Janssen (Eawag - Swiss Federal Institute of Aquatic Science and Technology, Switzerland) | Increasing confidence in detecting cyanobacterial peptides beyond microcystins and studying their environmental fate in surface waters
Paula Tamagnini (University of Porto, Portugal) | Cyanobacterial extracellular polymeric substances (EPS): From the genes to the industrial toolbox
Nicole Pietrasiak (New Mexico State University, USA) | Dryland soil cyanobacteria - Critical ecosystem engineers with unique biodiversity
Ralf Steuer (Humboldt University of Berlin, Germany) | Maximal growth rate, resource allocation, and the limits of phototrophic productivity
Paul D'Agostino (Dresden University of Technology, Germany) | Applying Direct Pathway Cloning (DiPaC) towards the capture and expression of cyanobacterial biosynthetic gene clusters
Alistair McCormick (University of Edinburgh, UK) | Using the CyanoGate platform to engineer Synechocystis sp. PCC 6803 for production of thermostable phycocyanin
Luis López-Maury (University of Seville, Spain) | A protease-mediated mechanism regulate cytochrome c6/ plastocyanin switch in cyanobacteria
Jeffrey Johansen (John Carroll University, USA and University of South Bohemia, Czech Republic) | The explosion of nomenclaturally invalid cyanobacterial genera: navigating two nomenclatural codes - YouTube Video (coming soon)
Karl Forchhammer (Eberhard Karl University of Tübingen, Germany) | Regulation of glycogen metabolism in response to the autotrophy-heterotrophy switch in Cyanobacteria
Petr Dvorak (Palacky University Olomouc, Czech Republic) | Species and speciation in cyanobacteria
Chin Soon Phan (National University of Singapore, Singapore) | Cyanobacterial natural products – prenylated cyclic peptides - YouTube Video (coming soon)
Season 2 (2022)
Nina Kamennaya (Ben-Gurion University of the Negev, Israel) | Accumulation of phosphate in periplasm of marine cyanobacteria
Danny Ducat (Michigan State University, USA) | Bottom up' interrogation of cyanobacterial metabolism through engineering non-native bioproduction sinks
Amel Latifi (Aix-Marseille University, France) | The PatX morphogen in the developmental cyanobacterium Anabaena sp. PCC 7120: from maturation to action - YouTube Video (coming soon)
Luca Schulz (Max Planck Institute for Terrestrial Microbiology, Germany) | How a small protein enabled the transition to aerobic life on earth - Rubisco and its small subunit - YouTube Video (coming soon)
Satoru Watanabe (Tokyo University of Agriculture, Japan) | Cyanobacterial multi-copy chromosomes and their replication
Anabella Aguilera (Linneaus University, Sweden) | Disentangling the role of regulated cell death in cyanobacteria
Cecilia Blikstad (Uppsala University, Sweden) | Discovery of a carbonic anhydrase-Rubisco supercomplex within the α-carboxysome - YouTube Video (coming soon)
Ellen Oldenburg (Heinrich Heine University Düsseldorf, Germany) | Timeseries analysis of Arctic pelagic bacterial and eukaryotic communities
Petra Visser (University of Amsterdam, The Netherlands) | Suppression of cyanobacterial blooms using hydrogen peroxide: effects on phytoplankton, bacteria and zooplankton - YouTube Video (coming soon)
María del Carmen Muñoz-Marín (University of Córdoba, Spain) | Are the extracellular vesicles a way to communicate among the Synechococcus cells? - YouTube Video (coming soon)
Luning Liu (University of Liverpool, UK) | Cyanobacterial Photosynthetic Machinery: Architecture, Biogenesis, and Regulation - YouTube Video (coming soon)
Lucas Gewehr (University of Mainz, Germany) | SynDLP, the fusogenic Dynamin-like protein of Synechocystis sp. PCC 6803 - YouTube Video (coming soon)
Abi Perrin (University of York, UK) | CyanoTag: High-throughput protein tagging in a model photosynthetic bacterium
Mark Heinnickel & Mesfin Gewe (Lumen Bioscience, USA) | Spirulina, a new therapeutic manufacturing, and delivery platform - YouTube Video (coming soon)
Steven J. Biller (Wellesley College, USA) | Cyanobacterial extracellular vesicles: origins, contents, and community interactions - YouTube Video (coming soon)
Pedro Leão (CIIMAR - University of Porto, Portugal) | Unique ways by which cyanobacteria deal with fatty acids - YouTube Video (coming soon)
María F. Fillat (University of Zaragoza, Spain) | Regulatory networks operated by FUR (ferric uptake regulator) proteins in Anabaena sp. PCC 7120 - YouTube Video (coming soon)
Julia Kleinteich (German Federal Institute of Hydrology, Germany) | Warning signals from German waterways: Cyanobacteria and algae in a changing climate - YouTube Video (coming soon)
Taina Tyystjärvi (University of Turku, Finland) | A novel signaling cascade regulates growth of the cyanobacterium Synechocystis sp. PCC 6803 according to CO2 - YouTube Video (coming soon)
Rodrigo Santibáñez (UC San Diego, USA) | iSynME: Development and interrogation of a computational model of the Synechocystis sp. PCC 6803 metabolism and gene expression at genome scale - YouTube Video (coming soon)
Season 3 (2023)
Iris Maldener (University of Tübingen, Germany) | The cell-cell communication system of filamentous cyanobacteria
Paul Hudson (KTH Royal Institute of Technology, Sweden) | New metabolite regulation of the bacterial Calvin cycle revealed by interaction proteomics
Rei Narikawa (Tokyo Metropolitan University, Japan) | Cyanobacteriochrome color palette for optogenetics and bioimaging - YouTube Video (coming soon)
James Golden (University of California, San Diego, USA) | Engineering expression of natural products in cyanobacteria and cyanobacterial growth in the short light/dark cycles of low earth orbit - YouTube Video (coming soon)
Tobias Pfennig (RWTH Aachen, Germany) | Capturing Cyanobacterial Photosynthesis - A spectrum-dependent mathematical model
Lukas Becker (HHU Düsseldorf, Germany) & Giorgio Bianchini (University of Bristol, UK) | Elevating Your Genomic Analyses: CATHI and TreeViewer for Holistic Analysis - YouTube Video (coming soon)
Jan Červený (CzechGlobe, Czechia) | Digital platform for intelligent research on microalgae: A case study on the application of evolutionary AI techniques to enhance the growth of cyanobacteria - YouTube Video (coming soon)
Season 4 (2024)
Jeff Elhai (USA) | N2-fixing organelles: Can they make a difference in meeting world food needs? - YouTube Video (coming soon)
Estel Rueda Hernandez (University of Barcelona, Spain) | Can cyanobacteria meet the bioplastics production challenge? - An environmental and economic perspective - YouTube Video (coming soon)
Keynote Speaker at Cyano2020 Summer School
Yagut Allahverdiyeva (University of Turku, Finland) | Introduction to Photosynthetic Light Reactions in Cyanobacteria
Mar Benavides (Mediterranean Institute of Oceanography, Marseille, France) | Marine Diazotrophic Cyanobacteria
Sally W. Chisholm (Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Boston, USA) | The Power Of Diversity - What Prochlorococcus Can Teach Us About Life
Maria Del Carmen Santos Merino (Michigan State University, East Lansing, USA) | Metabolic Engineering of Cyanobacteria
Elke Dittmann (University of Potsdam, Germany) | Cyanobacterial Blooms and Their Toxins
Marion Eisenhut (Heinrich Heine University Düsseldorf, Germany) | Manganese Homeostasis in Cyanobacteria
Nicole Frankenberg-Dinkel (Technical University Kaiserslautern, Germany) | Pigment Biosynthesis from Bacteria Goes Viral
Susan Golden (University of California San Diego, USA) | Circadian Control of Gene Expression In Vivo and In Vitro
Patricia Sanchez Baracaldo (University of Bristol, UK) | History and Evolution of Cyanobacteria
Annegret Wilde (Albert Ludwigs University Freiburg, Germany) | Phototaxis in Cyanobacteria
Anusuya Willis (Australian National Algae Culture Collection ANACC, CSIRO, Australia) | Defining Cyanobacterial Species: Diversity and Description Through Genomics
Yulia Yuzenkova (University of Newcastle, UK) | Peculiarities of Cyanobacterial Transcription
Julie Zedler (Friedrich Schiller University Jena, Germany) | Cyanobacteria for Biotechnology - Can SynBio Make It Happen?