Microbiologist Jennifer Hurley is studying the link between time of day and metabolic regulation to maximize the manufacturing of biofuel components.
Research Alert
Circadian rhythm affects all organisms, including humans. It's the reason humans feel tired or groggy with the shift of the clocks during Daylight savings time.
The 24-hour cycle also affects fungus, which has implications how how fungus can help biofuel production.
Jennifer Hurley, a molecular biologist at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, is studying the role of circadian rhythms in cellulsase, which the enzyme extracted from the filamentous fungus Neurospora crassa. Identifying the times of day that fungus produce cellulase could maximize the manufacturing of biofuel components. Hurley is
Hurley is using cryo-electron microscopy, nuclear magnetic resonance imaging, and protein production pipelines at the Environmental Molecular Sciences Laboratory (EMSL) as well as resources from the Joint Genome Institute (JGI) and BioSANS Beamline to map shifts in the circadian day. With this data, Hurley and her research team will generate models of the circadian regulation of metabolism.
Hear Hurley explain how circadian clocks could improve biofuel production in a newly released episode of the EMSL podcast, Bonding Over Science. A feature article on her EMSL user project is also available on the EMSL web site.
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