Blog Session #1
Investigation of large-scale cultures at a pilot plant - an introduction
Before I can give you a glimpse into the life of a Marie Curie Early Stage Researcher/PhD Student, let me tell you a little bit about the research I am doing and how exactly a Dutch/Kenyan girl ended up in a remote West Cork town in Ireland.
About 25 years ago, a baby girl called Fiona Moejes was born in an East African Rift Valley town in Kenya, to a Kenyan mother and Dutch father. She grew up moving between Kenya, the Netherlands, and Tanzania, and ended up studying Medical Genetics at The University of Sheffield in the UK. For her Masters project, she worked on characterising a microalgae, Tetraselmis suecica, as a source of biodiesel - this is where her love affair with microalgae, and the potential of microalgal-derived products, began.
At the start of 2013, I came across a vacancy for a PhD project 'Investigating large-scale cultures at a pilot-plant, Daithi O'Murchu Marine Research Station' in Bantry - a small fishing town in the south west of Ireland. Although my scientific experience working with microalgae was limited to the work carried out for my Masters, I decided to just send in an application regardless. A wonderful lady, Dr Julie Maguire, decided to take a chance with me and offered me the position. I moved to Bantry that April.
In general, the project aims to understand what the population response of a diatom, Phaeodactylum tricornutum, was to the scaling up process associated with the commercialisation of microalgal - what happens when we go from a 250ml lab flask to a 6000L outdoor raceway pond. The initial months were really 'teething' months - trying to understanding what were the aims of my project, experimental approaches, how the project fitted in with the rest of the AccliPhot projects, literature reviews, etc.
The first few experiments were basic - I cultured P. tricornutum under the same conditions but in different vessel sizes, from 250ml flasks to 80L columns. However, the biggest problem was contamination! As soon as I went up to 10L carboys, contamination with ciliates/amoeba/bacteria was evident. This would make any experimental results inconclusive. After some discussions with my second supervisor, Dr Oliver Ebenhoeh, we looked at spinning this negative perception of contamination around - maybe these contaminants might have some beneficial properties - i.e. look at any symbiotic relationship between the contaminants and the diatom. This is not a new idea (I wish I could say it was mine), and the lab of Dr Alison Smith at The University of Cambridge has looked at the symbiotic relationship between algae and bacteria and showed that the bacteria provided essential vitamins to the algae. (see www.plantsci.cam.ac.uk/research/alisonsmith for more info on Dr Alison Smith's work)
Basically, I am utilising Dr Alison Smith's approach and applying it to Phaeodacylum tricornutum. Because bacteria and diatom have co-existed together for over 300 million years it just makes sense to begin with looking at the bacteria possibly associated with P. tricornutum cultures. So far, we are in the process of carrying out some genetic sequencing on some samples collected at specific time points to get an idea of the bacterial consortia (and when they establish).
The overall idea as to why I am doing this research is to basically try and copy what Mother Nature has established and perfected over millions of years for the optimised cultivation of microalgae for commercialisation. If we find bacteria that are actually supporting and stabilising the microalgal cultures we could cut production costs by removing the need for adding expensive nutrients, or carrying out expensive (and labour-intensive) decontamination procedures. The next step would be to create a synthetic ecosystem in the microalgal cultures - filing all the niches available and therefore, minimising any other contamination.
But this is the BIIIIIG picture! For now, let's just see if we find some interesting bacterial consortia in the Phaeodactylum tricornutum cultures!!
Below are more links to Fiona's work:
Daithi O'Murchu Marine Research Station - www.dommrc.com
AccliPhot Profile (pdf) - www.accliphot.eu/documents/fellows_profiles/profile_fellow_FM.pdf
EuroNews Futuris program (Seaweed: Sea Fuel?) - www.euronews.com/2013/05/27/seaweed-sea-fuel/