Abstract

Photosynthesis first evolved in bacteria billions of years ago and represents a marvelous biological innovation. Bioengineering of this process for human’s benefits has long been our dream, but it remains a huge challenge. There is an increasing amount of evidence that bacterial photosynthetic reaction centers can be transferred into originally non-photosynthetic bacterial cells through yet unclear mechanisms of genetic material exchange. If we can learn the trick behind, we will be one step closer to freely editing and reconstructing this fascinating machinery.      

Short bio

Yonghui Zeng is an environmental microbiologist with research focusing on photosynthetic bacteria. He received his PhD. in 2008 in China and continued his research career in Czech Republic and Denmark. During his AIAS fellowship, he will specifically look at a newly found phototrophic bacterial group called Gemmatimonadetes and research its ecology and evolutionary history in nature by combining traditional microbiological approaches and cutting-edge genome sequencing technology. 

Yonghui Zeng's project at AIAS

What is a Fellows' Seminar?

The AIAS Fellows' Seminar is a session of seminars held by the AIAS fellow or by other speakers proposed by the fellows. In each seminar, one fellow will present and discuss his/her current research and research project, closing off with a question and discussion session.

All seminars are held in English and open to the public. Registration to the seminar is not necessary.  Read more about the AIAS Fellows' Seminar here.