Directed and adaptive evolution of photosynthetic systems
Lead Research Organisation:
Queen Mary University of London
Department Name: Sch of Biological & Behavioural Sciences
Abstract
Photosystems are the complex molecular assemblies of photosynthesis, they generate the energy that sustain nearly all the biosphere, directly powering the global fixation of about a hundred gigatons of carbon dioxide annually. Photosynthesis uses two photosystems working in series: photosystem II and photosystem I. Photosystem II harvests light to power the oxidation and decomposition of water into protons, electrons, and the oxygen we breathe. Photosystem I harvests light to generate the power needed to drive metabolic reactions, importantly, but not exclusively, carbon dioxide fixation. These properties make the photosystems amongst the most powerful enzymes in the history of life, both capable of driving their own difficult chemistry using light.
My long-term vision is to use evolution-based methods to completely redesign the photosystems so that we can harness their properties to do useful chemistry beyond their naturally evolved function. I want to develop a technological platform that enables exquisite control of both photosystems to achieve bespoke multi-step light-driven oxidative or reductive biocatalysis. Eventually, I envision this platform linked to a research facility that allows for the rapid and high-throughput purification, characterisation, and production of these novel photosystems for a broad range of applications, from bioremediation to precision chemistry, all driven by light. Therefore, this technology can benefit and impact the biotechnology and chemical industry by creating new ways to perform clean chemical reactions.
In this extension, I continue the work that was started in the first stage of the fellowship. My lab is currently developing, optimising, and characterising directed evolution approaches that target photosystem II to change its functional properties beyond its naturally evolved function. Directed evolution is an extremely versatile approach that is used to change the traits, or the activity of a given enzyme by exploiting evolution. It can be done simply by subjecting an organism through repeated cycles of selection under the conditions that favour the desired traits or by screening for the desired function, it can be enhanced by turbocharging mutational rates (hypermutation), it can be focused on a single gene of interest, parts of a gene, or multiple genes. Hypermutation can be done in vitro, where the genes are mutated in the test tube; or in vivo, where hypermutation occurs as the cells divide and replicate. My lab has a working in vitro system that we have already used to isolate several photosystem II variants harbouring a range of mutations and are about to deploy and in vivo CRISPR-based hypermutation system.
The idea of applying directed evolution to engineer novel photosystems is without precedent. While directed evolution is a somewhat of a mature technology, it has not been extensively applied to complex enzymatic systems like the photosystems, if at all. In addition, the development of directed evolution approaches in photosynthetic organisms also lags compared with non-photosynthetic systems like E. coli and yeast. While an ambitious and challenging research endeavour, I've demonstrated that photosystem II remains evolvable and plastic in nature thanks to its structural modularity. Therefore, our approach harnesses this natural adaptability using directed evolution but accelerated to lab timescales.
The overarching aim of this fellowship is to demonstrate that photosystem II is amenable to directed evolution, and to begin developing hypermutation and selection approaches to drive its evolution. The ultimate objective of this extension is to deliver proof-of-concept novel photosystems, or strains of cyanobacteria harbouring these novel photosystems, that could pave the wave towards scaling up and translating this vision into viable green biotechnologies.
My long-term vision is to use evolution-based methods to completely redesign the photosystems so that we can harness their properties to do useful chemistry beyond their naturally evolved function. I want to develop a technological platform that enables exquisite control of both photosystems to achieve bespoke multi-step light-driven oxidative or reductive biocatalysis. Eventually, I envision this platform linked to a research facility that allows for the rapid and high-throughput purification, characterisation, and production of these novel photosystems for a broad range of applications, from bioremediation to precision chemistry, all driven by light. Therefore, this technology can benefit and impact the biotechnology and chemical industry by creating new ways to perform clean chemical reactions.
In this extension, I continue the work that was started in the first stage of the fellowship. My lab is currently developing, optimising, and characterising directed evolution approaches that target photosystem II to change its functional properties beyond its naturally evolved function. Directed evolution is an extremely versatile approach that is used to change the traits, or the activity of a given enzyme by exploiting evolution. It can be done simply by subjecting an organism through repeated cycles of selection under the conditions that favour the desired traits or by screening for the desired function, it can be enhanced by turbocharging mutational rates (hypermutation), it can be focused on a single gene of interest, parts of a gene, or multiple genes. Hypermutation can be done in vitro, where the genes are mutated in the test tube; or in vivo, where hypermutation occurs as the cells divide and replicate. My lab has a working in vitro system that we have already used to isolate several photosystem II variants harbouring a range of mutations and are about to deploy and in vivo CRISPR-based hypermutation system.
The idea of applying directed evolution to engineer novel photosystems is without precedent. While directed evolution is a somewhat of a mature technology, it has not been extensively applied to complex enzymatic systems like the photosystems, if at all. In addition, the development of directed evolution approaches in photosynthetic organisms also lags compared with non-photosynthetic systems like E. coli and yeast. While an ambitious and challenging research endeavour, I've demonstrated that photosystem II remains evolvable and plastic in nature thanks to its structural modularity. Therefore, our approach harnesses this natural adaptability using directed evolution but accelerated to lab timescales.
The overarching aim of this fellowship is to demonstrate that photosystem II is amenable to directed evolution, and to begin developing hypermutation and selection approaches to drive its evolution. The ultimate objective of this extension is to deliver proof-of-concept novel photosystems, or strains of cyanobacteria harbouring these novel photosystems, that could pave the wave towards scaling up and translating this vision into viable green biotechnologies.
Organisations
- Queen Mary University of London (Lead Research Organisation)
- University of Cambridge (Collaboration)
- National Taiwan University (Collaboration)
- University of Wisconsin-Madison (Collaboration)
- ETH Zurich (Collaboration)
- University of Nottingham (Collaboration)
- IMPERIAL COLLEGE LONDON (Collaboration)
- Yale University (Collaboration)
- UNIVERSITY OF MANCHESTER (Collaboration)
Publications
Eckardt NA
(2024)
Lighting the way: Compelling open questions in photosynthesis research.
in The Plant cell
| Description | This grant is the extension to my FLF (MR/T017546/1 and MR/T017546/2), which represents the continuation and advancement of the original aims of the proposal. Therefore all outputs, findings, and impact apply to all. We are working toward enabling methods to engineer the components of photosynthesis, the photosystems, to enable biotechnological applications that could have an impact on the development of sustainable advanced technologies. Within the first 5 years of the fellowship we have been able to develop and adapt methods to perform directed evolution of the photosystems. We have produced the first gene libraries that diversify the key component of the photosystem. We have adapted simpler and more complex methods, which we are now using to engineer novel photosystems. We have now isolated over 50 photosystems with an unprecedented range of mutations that we plan to continue characterizing, and are preparing for a second round of evolution. We have also produced two lines of photosystem complex with novel catalytic domains including a reductive dehalogenation and hydroxylation domains. We have developed a CRISPR-based hypermutation system that we're about to deploy to begin testing and characterizing. We have also initiated a long-term genome evolution experiment in cyanobacteria: the only lineage of bacteria capable of oxygenic photosynthesis and of major biotech interest for developing green technologies. We have now over 100 genomes from five different strains, under different conditions and time points, giving us, for the first time, a high resulution view of genome evolution for these organisms. This new data is becoming a source of new discoveries and might have major impact for the practices and maintainance of photosynthetic microbes in culture collection or biotechnology projects. |
| Exploitation Route | The research is ongoing. I hope however that many of the method we are developing will open possibilities for the use of photosynthetic enzyme in biocatalysis applications. |
| Sectors | Agriculture Food and Drink Chemicals Education Energy Environment Manufacturing including Industrial Biotechology Other |
| Description | The sponsored work on the origin and evolution of photosynthesis is impacting how we understand the emergence of life on earth. This is already starting to influence how the evolution of life is taught and presented to the general public and students at A-level/undergraduate level. To give a couple of examples, I have contributed a new textbook targeted titled "Photosynthetic life: Origin, Evolution, and Future." that is proving popular, which has revisited perspectives on the history of life. The documentary "The Universe" produced by BBC Studios and hosted by Prof. Brian Cox presented concepts on the importance of photosynthesis for the evolution of life that were influenced by my work, as I was personally interviewed by the producer Poppy Pinnock. I have published a major paper in Annual Reviews of Plant Biology aimed at a broad redearship, which is likely to become seminal in the subject, and which offers perspectives on the utilization of photosynthesis that has never been considered in the literature before, but which I believe had the potential to kick-start many novel research pathways that will benefit society. I have also promoted our work at major conferences and recently through a very popular podcast by the American Chemical Society that are likely to reach a major audiance. The sponsored work on "directed evolution" and "long-term genome evolution" are still at early stages since the research programme is new. However, it is highly likely that this will have a strong impact within the chemical, energy, environmental, biotech, and agricultural sector. |
| First Year Of Impact | 2024 |
| Sector | Agriculture, Food and Drink,Chemicals,Creative Economy,Education,Energy,Environment,Manufacturing, including Industrial Biotechology |
| Impact Types | Cultural Societal Economic |
| Description | Consultancy for a start-up biotech company |
| Geographic Reach | National |
| Policy Influence Type | Participation in a guidance/advisory committee |
| URL | https://www.cyanoskin.com/ |
| Description | Directed evolution of photosystem I chimeras |
| Amount | £100,000 (GBP) |
| Organisation | Chinese Scholarship Council |
| Sector | Charity/Non Profit |
| Country | China |
| Start | 08/2025 |
| End | 09/2029 |
| Description | Enhancing Research & Innovation Cultures Fund |
| Amount | £5,000 (GBP) |
| Organisation | Queen Mary University of London |
| Sector | Academic/University |
| Country | United Kingdom |
| Start | 02/2025 |
| End | 07/2025 |
| Title | CyDIVE: Cyanobacterial Directed In Vivo Evolution system |
| Description | An in vivo directed evolution system based on EvolvR system (developed for E. coli, Halperin et al., 2018), which employs Cas9 nickase fused to a error-prone polymerase. The fusion protein navigates to the target region by Cas9-sgRNA complex, and the error-prone polymerase introduces point mutations in the downstream up to 130 bp from the target sgRNA sequence. To work in cyanobacteria and also to enhance the system, multiplexed sgRNA array and rhamnose inducible promoter are introduced. All parts are designed using STEP golden gate syntax for modular assembly and modification. |
| Type Of Material | Technology assay or reagent |
| Year Produced | 2023 |
| Provided To Others? | No |
| Impact | This system enables directed evolution of proteins in targeted and focused manner while growing cells under selection pressure, which facilitates multiple rounds of rapid and broad exploration of evolutionary landscape without laborious transformation and selection procedure. This is the first of such system applied for cyanobacteria. |
| Title | Generation of new cyanobacterial strains of biotechnological interest by adaptive evolution experiments |
| Description | This method involves serial culturing and exposure to a particular chemical/condition which in time will produce new strains tolerant the condition tested, and tracking of the genomic changes over time. This method is based on the E.coli long-term evolution experiment, by Richard Lensky and colleagues, however in our case a selection pressure is added from the beginning. 6 cultures of a species of cyanobacteria, derived from the same parental strain, are freshly inoculated into two conditions, the control condition and a selective pressure condition, in our case the presence of glucose in the media. The method involves weekly transfers and storing long-term culture back ups every 10 weeks (around 50 generations). Slow increase of the selective may be needed in the initial stages of the experiment. Cultures are grown in an incubator with a day and night cycle of 16h/8h respectively, light intensity of 50 µmol·m-2·s-1 and temperature of 25°C/20°C respectively. Weekly transfers: - 20ml cultures are freshly inoculated in BG-11 each week. - Firstly, the optical density (OD) of grown cultures is measure at 730nm and volume of inoculum calculated for a resulting OD of 0.05 in the new culture. OD is plotted to track growth. - New flasks are labelled and either BG-11 or BG-11 plus glucose is added to new flasks for a final 20ml volume of culture. - Inoculum is added and 1ml of the new culture is kept for subsequent steps. - 10ul of that 1ml sample is inoculated onto a BG-11plate supplemented with glucose and casaminoacids. This plate is then incubated in the dark and keeps track of any contaminant heterotrophic species arising. - 900ul is used to track OD of new culture. - Cultures are returned to the incubator and placed always in the same order. -Parental cultures are kept in low light conditions for a week as back ups. Long-term storing of back up cultures: Every 10 weeks samples are taking for genomic DNA (gDNA) extraction and long-term storing of evolved cultures. The samples taken are as follows: -3x 1ml aliquots for long-term back up cryostocks -1X 4ml aliquot for for gDNA sample back up cryostock -1x 5ml sample for gDNA extraction (see genomic DNA extraction protocol) For the preparation of cryostocks do as follows: 1. Add 50ul DMSO to all the 1ml cryotubes for a final 5% concentration. 2. Work out the numbers in the strain collection and label the tubes. Write down all numbers in the collection notebook. 3. Add 200ul DMSO to the 4ml cryotubes and label them with the TC numbers plus -glu #1 etc to identify them quicker. 4. On the day of the experiment, do the passes first as usual. 5. Then process the 1ml -80C back ups: Add 950ul from each culture to each 3X aliquots. 6. Vortex samples to mix. 7. Flash feeze in liquid nitrogen 8. Store in -80C in corresponding box Keep accurate records of frozen cultures and genomic samples in paper and digital inventories. |
| Type Of Material | Biological samples |
| Year Produced | 2023 |
| Provided To Others? | No |
| Impact | N/A |
| Title | Genomic DNA extraction for short-read and long-read whole genome sequencing |
| Description | Genomic DNA for Illumina sequencing was prepared using the Quick-DNAâ„¢ Fungal/Bacterial Miniprep Kit from Zymo Research. 5ml of cells at OD 1-2 /Cells were harvested by centrifugation at 4000rpm for 15 minutes, resuspended in 1ml of sterile deionised water and transferred to 1.5ml microfuge tubes. Cells were spin again at 13000rpm for 4 minutes, supernatant removed and pellet resuspended in 100ul sterile deionised water. Manufacturer instructions were followed from this point. DNA was resuspended in EB buffer and analysed by nanodrop and Qubit. For High Molecular Weight genomic DNA isolation, the METIS protocol was used (Hept and Green, 2023) with some modifications: centrifugation was done at 3900rpm for 25-30 minutes, supernatant was then removed and 1ml of PBS/deionised water added. Resuspended pellet was transferred to a 1.5ml tube, washed again and resuspend in PBS plus lysozyme (60ul Lysozyme 10mg/ml +40 ul pbs), followed by an incubation at 30minutes at 37C. Then METIS protocol was followed. Concentration, purity and integrity of DNA was analysed with Qbit, Nanodrop and Tapestation. |
| Type Of Material | Biological samples |
| Year Produced | 2024 |
| Provided To Others? | No |
| Impact | N/A |
| Title | His47 Syn6803GT |
| Description | A glucose tolerant Synechocystis sp. PCC6803 strain with a His tag at the C-terminal of CP47 in photosystem II |
| Type Of Material | Biological samples |
| Year Produced | 2024 |
| Provided To Others? | No |
| Impact | This strain enables the His tag affinity-based purification of wild type photosystem II in Synechocystis |
| Title | In vitro gene diversification system for photosystem II in Synechocystis |
| Description | This system is developed to introduce random point mutations in the reaction centre subunit D1 to create variant photosystem II library for subsequent screening for desired functionalities. The randomisation is done by error-prone PCR and the variant D1 sequences are assembled into the integrative plasmid backbones. The constructed plasmid library is then introduced to Synechocystis by high-efficiency natural transformation facilitated by pre-methylation technique, and resulting cells with variant photosystem II are used for screenings. |
| Type Of Material | Technology assay or reagent |
| Year Produced | 2022 |
| Provided To Others? | No |
| Impact | This system is based on molecular biology techniques widely used in cyanobacterial research community which indicates its proven robustness in terms of applicability for other research, and is shown to create several hundreds of thousands high quality photosystem II variants. Together with its tunable mutational frequency, this system became one of our essential tools in the current project "Directed Evolution of Photosystem Chemistry". |
| Title | Local Colabfold pipeline for protein structural prediction |
| Description | A local Colabfold pipeline installed in the high performance computing cluster at QM. Colabfold is a faster version of AlphaFold 2, and the pipeline contains all the necessary datasets and parameters to run protein structural predictions locally. |
| Type Of Material | Technology assay or reagent |
| Year Produced | 2025 |
| Provided To Others? | Yes |
| Impact | This tool enables large scale structural predictions of custom protein sequence data. |
| Title | Methyltrasferase expression system for enhanced natural transformation in Synechocystis |
| Description | Creating large size of variant libraries and screening them in high throughput manner is an integral part of directed evolution. To create a library, a gene of interest can be diversified in vitro and introduced to Synechocystis, our model organism which is a unicellular cyanobacteria. Synechocystis is naturally transformable, but the efficiency is quite low and it was identified as one of the bottlenecks. In an attempt to overcome this issue, a native methyltransferase (MTase) in Synechocytis was cloned and expressed in E. coli to bypass restriction-modification (R-M) system, one of its innate protection systems from foreign DNA, by mimicking the native methylation pattern. The concept of using MTase in Synechocystis transfromation was introduced by Wang et al. (2015), and we constructed a new MTase expression vector pSK01 which is compact (3.6 kb), medium copy number plasmid (15-20) expressing SGL_RS13525 under J23119 promoter. |
| Type Of Material | Technology assay or reagent |
| Year Produced | 2021 |
| Provided To Others? | No |
| Impact | This system enhanced the transformation efficiency by almost two orders of magnitude, effectively creating large size library of 4,000 - 10,000 unique variants. |
| Title | Photosystem I-chimeras |
| Description | We have genetically engineered photosystem I to be linked to reductive enzymes, including reductive dehalogenase and Cyt P450 for light-drive biocatalysis |
| Type Of Material | Biological samples |
| Year Produced | 2023 |
| Provided To Others? | No |
| Impact | Impact yet to be realised |
| Title | Rhamnose inducible promoter with extra repression using riboswitch |
| Description | To prevent potential leaky expression of rhamnose promoter in Synechocystis, a theophylline responsive riboswitch is placed in between the transcription start site and the ribosome binding site. |
| Type Of Material | Biological samples |
| Year Produced | 2023 |
| Provided To Others? | No |
| Impact | This new promoter enables a tighter control on the expression of the protein of interest, which will be beneficial in controlling unwanted expression of potentially toxic genes in Synechocystis. |
| Title | psbA2-only Syn6803 |
| Description | A glucose tolerant Synechocystis sp. PCC 6803 strain with psbA1 and psbA3 deletion, and with a His tag at the C-terminal of CP47. |
| Type Of Material | Biological samples |
| Year Produced | 2024 |
| Provided To Others? | No |
| Impact | This strain can serve as a wild-type photosystem II control to psbA deletion strain (all three copies of psbA are deleted) and mutant psbA2 clones made from the psbA deletion strain. It also enables the affinity purification of psbA2 only photosystem II in Synechocystis. |
| Title | Dataset for the article "Exploring the structural diversity and evolution of the D1 subunit of photosystem II using AlphaFold and Foldtree" |
| Description | The dataset supporting the article on the structural prediction of D1 protein in photosystem II and the structural phylogenetics. |
| Type Of Material | Database/Collection of data |
| Year Produced | 2025 |
| Provided To Others? | Yes |
| Impact | The study was the first utilising Alphafold 2 to explore the structural diversity of D1 protein in large scale, and the dataset provides all the predicted structures of D1 and phylogenetic tree files, and alignment analysis results. |
| URL | https://zenodo.org/doi/10.5281/zenodo.14967328 |
| Title | Structural modelling of various reaction centre protein D1 using AlphaFold2 and Foldtree |
| Description | 738 reaction centre protein D1 structures were predicted by AlphaFold2. These structures were then used for all-to-all structural alignment by mTM-Align and FoldSeek, and their divergence was visualised by structural phylogenetic tree by Foldtree program. |
| Type Of Material | Database/Collection of data |
| Year Produced | 2023 |
| Provided To Others? | No |
| Impact | The set of the predicted structures can be used in various downstream structural analysis, e.g. the relationship between sequence and structural divergence and its impact on PS II evolution. |
| Description | Applying new inducible promoter to control expression of in vivo directed evolution system in Synechocystis |
| Organisation | University of Nottingham |
| Department | School of Life Sciences |
| Country | United Kingdom |
| Sector | Academic/University |
| PI Contribution | We are constructing an in vivo hypermutation system in Synechocystis to create in situ variant libraries for directed evolution. This system is being designed to be able to mutate multiple loci/regions of interest at the same time in living Synechocystis cells. Controlling expression of the hypermutation system and following mutational rate on the target region is important, because accumulation of too many detrimental mutations in short time could exhaust living cell populations before exploring available evolutionary landscape. Also, the hypermutation system should be silenced when we found desired variants for correct genotyping. |
| Collaborator Contribution | Prof. John Heap and his lab provided two plasmids containing rhamnose inducible promoter as a candidate to control the expression of the hypermutation system in construction. |
| Impact | The system is in construction and the inducible promoter will be tested in coming months. |
| Start Year | 2022 |
| Description | Biosensor and microfluidics for directed evolution of photosystem II |
| Organisation | ETH Zurich |
| Country | Switzerland |
| Sector | Academic/University |
| PI Contribution | We provide insights on evolutionary potential of photosystem II towards novel photobiocatalysis, along with variant photosystem II libraries. |
| Collaborator Contribution | Prof. Sven Panke and Dr. Martin Held provide expertise in designing biosensor and microfluidics system, and Dr. Adrian Bunzel in photoenzyme engineering. |
| Impact | Potential genetic systems are in discussion for custom biosensors for photosystem II activity, as well as a microfluidics system accommodating requirements specific to cyanobacteria (e.g. slower growth, illumination). |
| Start Year | 2023 |
| Description | Design of chimeric photosystem II fused with red fluorescent proteins |
| Organisation | University of Cambridge |
| Country | United Kingdom |
| Sector | Academic/University |
| PI Contribution | I hosted for 6 months a joing postdoctoral researcher working in a collaborative project between my team and the partner at U. of Cambridge. The postdoc is a MSCA fellow. We provided training in synthetic biology of cyanobacteria and photosystems and photosynthesis research methods. |
| Collaborator Contribution | The partner will be taking charge of electrochemical and biophysical characterisation of the chimeric photosystems designed in my lab. |
| Impact | This is a multidisciplinary proposal involving synthetic biology, biochemistry, biophysics, and electrochemistry. We've developed a series of strains and photosystems as proof-of-concept that may have future biotechnological applications, although this is still unpublished. |
| Start Year | 2024 |
| Description | Direct substrate screening of variant photosystem II in Synechocystis colonies by DiBT-MS |
| Organisation | University of Manchester |
| Department | Manchester Institute of Biotechnology MIB |
| Country | United Kingdom |
| Sector | Academic/University |
| PI Contribution | We are in the process of developing solid agar-based substrate screening methods to test novel biocatalytic potential of our photosystem II variant library in Synechocystis. Obtained variant colonies will be screened in Prof. Perdita Barran's lab to identify the products of potentially novel biocatalysis. |
| Collaborator Contribution | Prof. Perdita Barran and her group will provide DESI-MS platform in her laboratory in The Michael Barber Centre for Collaborative Mass Spectrometry along with technical expertise in colony screening and data analysis. |
| Impact | Interests of both parties on this project are confirmed and productive collaboration is agreed. Prof. Barran provided guideline for preparation of samples and pilot experiments, Dr. Cardona's group is working on developing substrate screening methods. This collaboration is empowered by different expertise of both groups including synthetic biology, biochemistry, chemical biology and analytical chemistry. |
| Start Year | 2022 |
| Description | Exploring the structural diversity and evolution photosystem II |
| Organisation | Imperial College London |
| Country | United Kingdom |
| Sector | Academic/University |
| PI Contribution | We lead this collaboration on applying state-of-the-art protein prediction tools to photosynthesis. We have carried out the structure prediction of photosystem subunits and the structure-based evolutionary studies. |
| Collaborator Contribution | Collaborators aided with the initial set up and calculations of the study and in the interpretation of data and writing of a manucript for publication |
| Impact | A paper has been submitted for publication and is undergoing peer-review. The data has been presented at various conferences. |
| Start Year | 2022 |
| Description | Structure and evolution of Photosystem I in the early-branching cyanobacterium Anthocerotibacter panamensis |
| Organisation | National Taiwan University |
| Country | Taiwan, Province of China |
| Sector | Academic/University |
| PI Contribution | My carried out the molecular evolution part of the study, which included extensive phylogenetic analysis. We also contributed to the preparation of the paper and data analysis and interpretation. |
| Collaborator Contribution | Partners did the biochemical characterisation of the system and solver the CryoEM structure of photosystem I from the named organism. |
| Impact | A paper is nearly accepted for publication in PNAS. This is a multidisciplinary collaboration including, microbiology, biochemistry, biophysics, computational biology, and evolutionary biology |
| Start Year | 2024 |
| Description | Structure and evolution of Photosystem I in the early-branching cyanobacterium Anthocerotibacter panamensis |
| Organisation | University of Wisconsin-Madison |
| Country | United States |
| Sector | Academic/University |
| PI Contribution | My carried out the molecular evolution part of the study, which included extensive phylogenetic analysis. We also contributed to the preparation of the paper and data analysis and interpretation. |
| Collaborator Contribution | Partners did the biochemical characterisation of the system and solver the CryoEM structure of photosystem I from the named organism. |
| Impact | A paper is nearly accepted for publication in PNAS. This is a multidisciplinary collaboration including, microbiology, biochemistry, biophysics, computational biology, and evolutionary biology |
| Start Year | 2024 |
| Description | Structure and evolution of Photosystem I in the early-branching cyanobacterium Anthocerotibacter panamensis |
| Organisation | Yale University |
| Country | United States |
| Sector | Academic/University |
| PI Contribution | My carried out the molecular evolution part of the study, which included extensive phylogenetic analysis. We also contributed to the preparation of the paper and data analysis and interpretation. |
| Collaborator Contribution | Partners did the biochemical characterisation of the system and solver the CryoEM structure of photosystem I from the named organism. |
| Impact | A paper is nearly accepted for publication in PNAS. This is a multidisciplinary collaboration including, microbiology, biochemistry, biophysics, computational biology, and evolutionary biology |
| Start Year | 2024 |
| Description | A selected talk at 2nd European Congress on Photosynthesis Research |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | A talk or presentation |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | International |
| Primary Audience | Other audiences |
| Results and Impact | I presented my work to the international academics and researchers in photosynthesis research field, and invited to contribute to a special issue in a Journal called "Physiologia Plantarum". |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2024 |
| Description | Flash talk and poster presentation at 10th International Congress on Biocatalysis |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | A talk or presentation |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | International |
| Primary Audience | Other audiences |
| Results and Impact | Presented a poster on the progresses made (e.g. pre-methylation system, in vitro gene diversification system) and future approach (in vivo directed evolution system), and selected for 5 minute flash talk in the main venue. The poster and the talk attracted wide audience and sparked discussions on novel catalytic potential of photosystems and future approach, along with possible collaborations. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2022 |
| Description | Flash talk and poster presentation at Gordon Research Conference on Photosynthesis 2023, Maine, USA |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | A talk or presentation |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | International |
| Primary Audience | Professional Practitioners |
| Results and Impact | I gave 3 min flash talk on the project during Gordon Research Conference on Photosynthesis 2023. After the session, a few academics and students came to my poster and asked great questions. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2023 |
| Description | Interview during pre-production of a documentary by BBC studios |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | A broadcast e.g. TV/radio/film/podcast (other than news/press) |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | National |
| Primary Audience | Public/other audiences |
| Results and Impact | Consulted for BBC Studios during the production "Wonders of the Sun" documentary with Dara Ó Briain for Channel 5 |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2024 |
| URL | https://www.channel5.com/show/wonders-of-the-sun-with-dara-o-briain/season-1 |
| Description | Interview for Tiny Matters Podcast by the American Chemical Society |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | A broadcast e.g. TV/radio/film/podcast (other than news/press) |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | International |
| Primary Audience | Public/other audiences |
| Results and Impact | "Algae transformed Earth: next stop Mars?" Interview for Tiny Matters Podcast by the American Chemical Society. Hosted and produced by Dr. Sam Jones and Dr. Deboki Chakravarti, April 2023. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2023 |
| URL | https://open.spotify.com/episode/1aPTJW6nyz7fWy2oMZQXHk?si=KQFFaodhRZ-BDw8G412_Mw |
| Description | Interviewed for "Jax & Phoebe's Make a Planet" podcast |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | A broadcast e.g. TV/radio/film/podcast (other than news/press) |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | International |
| Primary Audience | Public/other audiences |
| Results and Impact | I was interviewed for a podcast on the topic of the evolutionary history of the planet. The host of the podcast reported being very excited about our research. At this stage, I'm not sure how big is the audience of the podcast, but it was sponsored through a crowd-sourced mechanism. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2024,2025 |
| URL | https://www.makeaplanetpod.earth/ |
| Description | Invited speech for the General Assembly of the European Astrobiology Institute |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | A talk or presentation |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | International |
| Primary Audience | Professional Practitioners |
| Results and Impact | I was invited to give a talk at the General Assembly of the EAI. While the audience was primarily scientist, the EAI has a strong public engagement programme, and my participation of the GA is likely to make an impact on this |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2024 |
| URL | https://europeanastrobiology.eu/the-eai-2024-general-assembly/ |
| Description | Panel discussion on opportunities between biotech industry, policy and academia, and SBBS at SBBS PDRA Symposium |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | Participation in an activity, workshop or similar |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | Local |
| Primary Audience | Industry/Business |
| Results and Impact | I organised a panel discussion session on the opportunities and experiences in between academia and industry, with a focus on biotech and policy periphery. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2024 |
| Description | Selected talk, Gordon Research Seminar on Photosynthesis, Maine, USA |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | A talk or presentation |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | International |
| Primary Audience | Postgraduate students |
| Results and Impact | My abstract was selected for a talk in Gordon Research Seminar on Photosynthesis 2023. Recent results on in vitro directed evolution of Photosystem II and structural modelling of D1 were presented, and a lively discussion was followed after the talk on the use of AlphaFold2 and the future perspective on the project. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2023 |