Ruanbao Zhou

Title

Professor

Office Building

Edgar S. McFadden Biostress Lab

Office

251B

Mailing Address

McFadden Biostress Laboratory 251B
Biology & Microbiology-Box 2140D
University Station
Brookings, SD 57007

CV

Areas of Research

Synthetic Biology for Green Chemicals

Using a synthetic biology approach to develop cellular cyanofactories, these engineered cyanobacteria are able to convert air (CO2 and N2 ) and water into fuel molecules (e.g. limonene) and high-value chemicals using sunlight. Outstanding graduate students recruited to work on this project will gain extensive hands-on training on biochemistry and molecular biology.

Filamentous Cyanobacteria

In response to environmental changes, vegetative cells of Anabaena cylindrica can differentiate into three other cell types: a heterocyst (H) for oxic N2-fixation, an enlarged spore called akinete (A) for stress survival, and a terminally tapered cell (T) that is highly active in cell division. Akinetes normally differentiate from vegetative cell adjacent to heterocysts. Heterocysts inhibit nearby cells from differentiating into heterocysts but can induce nearby cells to become akinetes, a rare embryogenetic induction in prokaryotes. We seek to understand how they do so.