Engineering Biocatalysts at the Molecular Level for Water and Energy Sustainability

Description

Abstract
Environmental contamination and increasing demand for renewable energy are two critical issues that need innovative and effective solutions to ensure a sustainable future. Biocatalysis, which refers to the use of enzymes or microbial cells for chemical transformations, can be exploited as a green chemistry alternative to address the challenges for environmental sustainability. This talk will present our research on understanding and engineering biocatalytic systems at the molecular level for i) degradation of emerging contaminants in water reclamation and reuse and ii) waste-to-energy/value biotransformation.

Biography
Na Wei, Ph.D., is an assistant professor in the Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering and Earth Sciences at the University of Notre Dame. Wei is currently leading the Environmental Molecular and Synthetic Biology Laboratory. She received her B.S. degree in Environmental Science and Engineering from Sichuan University, China, her Ph.D. and M.S. degrees in Environmental Engineering from the University of Illinois at Urbana Champaign (UIUC). She was a postdoctoral fellow in the Carl R. Woese Institute for Genomic Biology and Energy Bioscience Institute at UIUC. Wei’s research is focused on understanding and manipulating biological systems at the molecular level for beneficial applications towards environmental sustainability. Her research has been funded by NSF, NIH, DoD and USAID. Wei received NSF CAREER award in 2017.

Hosted by Professor April Gu