Home Department: Chemical Engineering
Mentor: Guosong Hong (Materials Science & Engineering)

“Bioprospecting and Directed Evolution of Nitrogen-Fixing Enzymes That Can Function in Eukaryotes”

Ammonia fertilizer, which is necessary for agriculture and carbon sequestration, is produced by the fossil-fuel dependent Haber-Bosch process. Ammonia runoff pollutes our waterways, increases soil acidification, and kills aquatic life. Biological nitrogen fixation into ammonia is currently limited to bacterial cells. Alison’s project will focus on creating enzymes for plants to produce ammonia. When put into industry use, this will lower the cost of agriculture. Her approach is to find and optimize functioning enzymes in yeast, which alone can mitigate many sources of CO2 emissions (e.g. generating biofuels and biomaterials). Adding these into plants could revolutionize agriculture.