Special Seminar: Precision Fermentation for Health and the Bioeconomy

ZOOM LINK
Meeting ID: 977 7792 8244
Passcode: 813105

While fermentation has played an important role in human civilization for millenia, recent advances in biotechnology are expanding the breadth of molecules that can be produced. Precision fermentation of diverse, value-added chemicals will provide a basis for a bio-economy that will transform medicine, agriculture, consumer products, and energy.

This talk will focus on technologies to engineer fermentation by Lachnospiraceae, a family of anaerobic bacteria that are abundant in the intestine, oral cavity, rumen, and soil. By exploiting and expanding carbon utilization and tuning fermentation products in Lachnospiraceae, these bacteria can be developed as advanced biocatalysts that ferment low-cost feedstocks and as optimized probiotics that mitigate intestinal inflammation.

About the Speaker(s)

Andrew Tolonen '98
Research Director, Alternative Energies & Atomic Energy Commission, France

Andy did his undergraduate studies at Dartmouth, where he majored in biology and wrote his undergraduate thesis under the supervision of Mark McPeek. He completed his doctorate at MIT in Penny Chisholm's lab on the molecular genetics of oceanic cyanobacteria, and his postdoctoral studies in microbial genome engineering at Harvard Medical School in George Church's lab. His work has since explored interactions between the human gut microbiome and the immune system as Associate Director of Microbiomes and Immunity Broad Institute of Harvard and MIT and as Head of Immunobiology at Kaleido Biosciences. Currently, his research group at the French Alternative Energies and Atomic Energy Commission focuses on the development of non-model microorganisms as industrial biocatalysts to produce value-added biochemicals and therapeutics.

Contact

For more information, contact Ashley Parker at ashley.l.parker@dartmouth.edu.