Achievement

IGERT Trainee Rob Gardner worked with faculty members in engineering and microbiology on his research exploring carbon neutral renewable fuels such as biodiesel. Rob's project focuses on isolation, characterization, and optimization of algal strains which produce elevated levels of triacylglycerol. Environmental parameters such as pH and medium component concentrations can induce triacylglycerol accumulation within algae. This interdisciplinary work has lead to multiple strain isolation, initial characterization, and evaluation with respect to the strains' ability to produce biofuel. This work resulted in the submission of a manuscript to the Biofuels journal. Furthermore, through the IGERT trainee program at MSU, Rob was able to do a laboratory rotation with collaborators at Utah State University in the biochemistry and biological engineering departments. That rotation facilitated the sharing of fundamental analytical methods used for characterization and evaluation of algae.