Achievement

IGERT Fellow Thomas Derrien successfully isolated intact chloroplasts from algae for use in next-generation photovoltaic devices. The algae were obtained from the Boyce Thomson Institute at Cornell. The algae strain, Chlamydomonas reinhardtii, was obtained as a cell-wall-deficient strain to aid in the extraction of organelles. The extraction protocol proved unsuccessful during the first few months, but after substitution of the lysis buffers and detergents, chloroplasts have been obtained with high purities: samples tested so far have contained as little as 3-4% whole algae cell impurities. Parallel experiments in the production of micron scale DNA-hydrogel droplets have been made to encapsulate the purified chloroplasts. The microdroplet-encapsulated chloroplasts will provide a sustainable material from which to make solar-powered devices.