NEWS

Bioalgal Team co-lead David Hanson (UNM) and Team member Jerilyn Timlin (SNL) recently received a grant from the Department of Energy for a new initiative to advance fundamental bioenergy science. Their project, "Hyperspectral Light Sheet Raman Imaging of Leaf Metabolism," is lead by P.I. and UNM Physics professor Keith Lidke, and will build on research, infrastructure, and collaborations established through the NM EPSCoR Energize New Mexico grant:

This project will provide major advances for in vivo, dynamic tracking of pathways of carbon fixation in living plants. A major limitation of metabolic flux models is the ability to constrain fluxes between organelles and between cells across small spatial areas (source and sink cells in the leaf). This project will develop and test a new imaging method coupling Raman imaging with light sheet-based illumination of leaf tissues while simultaneously monitoring photosynthesis and respiration. This novel tool will permit localization and quantification of carbon-13-labeled metabolites in living plants at the microscopic level as well as directly monitor conversion of photosynthetic metabolites (low-energy sugars) into higher energy compounds that can be further converted to biofuels and bioproducts. This project is a collaboration with Sandia National Laboratories.

Read the Department of Energy's press release,Department of Energy Announces $40 Million for Bio-Based Research, on their website. A list of all projects can be found here and here.