Day: September 3, 2021

People
New students

Two new students have joined the group. Supported by Dora Plus scholarship both PhD students from Brazil, Luísa Czamanski and Julianno Sabedotti De Biaggi, will work 6 and 3 months on R. toruloides, respectively. Luísa will focus on engineering R. toruloides strains capable of producing terpenes, which have a wide range of applications such as precursors of renewable fuels. Julianno will focus on R. toruloides carotenoid metabolism by expressing the enzyme phytoene desaturase from multiple phyla of Fungi in Escherichia coli and analysing its activity on different substrates in vitro.

People
New student
 Artjom Tšitšerin, a high school student at Tallinn Central Russian Gymnasium, has joined our group to curate the carotenoid pathway by investigating whether overexpressing an heterologous xylulokinase in R. Toruloides could improve carotenoid yield.