[Che-student-staff-list] Graduate Seminar Series - 05 - Dr. Anne Ruffing (Sandia)

[Waling, Robin M]

Dear All,

On behalf of Purdue University's Davidson School of Chemical Engineering, we are glad to announce our upcoming Graduate Seminar Series Lecturer Dr. Anne Ruffing from Bioenergy and Defense Technologies at Sandia National Laboratories. She will be visiting Purdue University on October 14th - October 15, 2019. You will find further detail regarding the lecture at the end of this email.

If you have any questions, please do not hesitate to contact me.

Sincerely,


Robin Waling
Administrative Assistant, Graduate Office
Davidson School of Chemical Engineering
480 Stadium Mall Dr.
West Lafayette, IN  47907
Phone: (765)-496-0309
E-mail: rwaling at purdue.edu<mailto:rwaling at purdue.edu>

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Graduate Seminar Series


[http://marketing.purdue.edu/Email/TemplateSets/ChE/Archive/Email00045/Anne%20Ruffing_1.jpg]
Dr. Anne Ruffing
Principal Member of the Technical Staff
Bioscience Research Foundation,
Sandia National Laboratories


Bio:
Dr. Anne Ruffing is a Principal Member of the Technical Staff in the department of Bioenergy and Defense Technologies at Sandia National Laboratories. Anne applies her expertise in metabolic engineering and synthetic biology to a wide variety of applications that are important to national security, including bioenergy, biosensors, bioremediation, and biodefense. Most notably, she leads strain development efforts for photosynthetic biofuel production and heads Sandia's efforts on bionuclear monitoring. Anne received a Bachelor of Chemical Engineering from the University of Dayton in 2004 and a PhD in Chemical Engineering from the Georgia Institute of Technology in 2010. In 2010, Anne was awarded the President Harry S. Truman Fellowship in National Security Science and Engineering, which launched her career at Sandia. She is also the recipient of a Laboratory Directed Research and Development Early Career Award at Sandia National Laboratories.


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"Bioengineering and National Security:
Engineering Photosynthetic Microorganisms for Energy Security & Developing Biosensors for Nuclear Security"
Tuesday, October 15, 2019
3:00 p.m. - 4:15 p.m.
FRNY G140

- Reception at 2:30 p.m. in Henson Atrium -
Abstract:
The mission of Sandia National Laboratories is to develop advanced technologies to ensure global peace. My laboratory seeks to address national security issues with bioengineering, and my research focuses on two main areas: engineering photosynthetic microorganisms for energy security and developing biosensors for nuclear security.

Energy security is a key component of national security both domestically and abroad. The transportation and chemical industries are reliant on petroleum products, which are a major contributor to climate change and a finite resource. Photosynthetic microorganisms (algae and cyanobacteria) use sunlight to fix carbon dioxide into various organic chemicals, providing a renewable source of biofuels and biochemicals while also reducing greenhouse gas emissions. Although biomass can be directly converted into biocrude using hydrothermal liquefaction, the natural photosynthetic biomass productivities of algae and cyanobacteria are insufficient to support large-scale fuel production. My research focuses on genetic tool development and metabolic engineering of two saltwater species, Microchloropsis gaditana (alga) and Synechococcus sp. PCC 7002 (cyanobacterium), to improve biomass productivity. I will discuss the development of genetic tools for gene expression and CRISPR-Cas9 genome editing in M. gaditana along with our recent work on developing CRISPR interference and CRISPR activation tools for high-throughput screening in Synechococcus sp. PCC 7002.

The rapid detection of chemicals associated with nuclear energy is critical for improving nuclear security and nuclear accident response. Nuclear energy disasters, such as the Chernobyl nuclear accident in 1986 or the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear disaster in 2011, disperse radionuclides into the environment. While some radionuclides have a short half-life of days, others have much longer half-lives, such as the 30-year half-life of cesium-137. My laboratory develops biosensors for the detection of cesium and other elements associated with nuclear energy emissions. I will discuss protein engineering and synthetic biology efforts to develop microbial biosensors for the detection of metals, cesium, and noble gases. Natural stress responses in plants may also serve as biosensors for the detection of metals, and I will present our work on using hyperspectral reflectance imaging along with multivariate curve resolution analysis to identify spectral signatures of metal stresses.


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Davidson School of Chemical Engineering<https://engineering.purdue.edu/ChE>
Purdue University
West Lafayette, IN 47907
(765) 494-4050<tel:+17654944050>

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