| Start Date: | 6/23/2015 | Start Time: | 11:00 AM |
| End Date: | 6/23/2015 | End Time: | 12:00 PM |
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Event Description
Towards understanding the microbiomes for energy and environmental applications
Dr. Patrick Lee: School of Energy and Environment, City University of Hong Kong
Abstract:
Complex microbial communities are everywhere. In some cases, we rely on these complex microbial communities to produce important compounds (e.g. methane in anaerobic digestion), while in other cases, we need to know how these communities are assembled for public health (e.g. bioaerosols) and personal health (e.g. human microbiome) reasons. We have characterized a few microbial communities of interest using next-generation sequencing. In our work with anaerobic digestion for methane generation, we addressed the diversity of methanogens, the metabolic similarities and differences between digesters that operate differently, and the interactions in an artificial coculture. In our indoor microbiome work, we analyzed a set of residential homes and correlated the human skin microbiomes with the microbial populations present in air and surfaces. In the skin microbiome, we further noted that ethnicity could play an important role and our data further expanded the skin ‘pan-microbiome’. Overall, advanced ‘meta-omics’ methods have enabled a comprehensive view inside complex microbial communities which should allow us to better manipulate these microbes for energy, environmental or health applications.
Lecturer Bio:
Dr. Patrick Lee has been an Assistant Professor in the School of Energy and Environment at the City University of Hong Kong since 2011. He received his BS degree in chemical engineering from Queen’s University in Canada in 2001, and his MS and PhD degrees in environmental engineering from the University of California, Berkeley in 2002 and 2007, respectively. From 2008 to 2010, he carried out post-doctoral research, also at the University of California, Berkeley. Dr. Lee is the recipient of awards such as the Canadian Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council Post-doctoral Fellowship. His research interests are environmental microbiology and microbial ecology for environmental engineering applications. |
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Location:
Bossone Building Room 302 |
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