| Faculty Advisor |
Nicole Buan
|
|---|---|
| Contact Email | nbuan2@unl.edu |
| Website | |
| Advisor College: |
Arts and Sciences
|
| Potential Student Tasks |
Responsibilities include reading and learning about microbial physiology and synthetic biology, conducting experiments, collecting and analyzing data alongside graduate students and the adviser, as well as general lab maintenance and preparing materials for experiments. Trainees will gain extensive experience with synthetic biology, anaerobic microbiology, genetics, biochemistry, and molecular biology including computational biology and genomics. Trainees attend weekly lab meetings and present their progress twice a semester. |
| Student Qualifications |
We are looking for curious, motivated, detail-oriented people who are eager to soak up all the info and skills we want to share! |
| Training, Mentoring, and Workplace Community |
The Buan Lab is passionate about providing opportunities for first-gen college students and is committed to growing the next generation of research pioneers. Graduates from the Buan Lab have been awarded prestigious fellowships, scholarships, and been admitted to top PhD programs and medical schools. For maximal learning benefit, please plan on committing to an average 10h per week. We encourage applying to UCARE and competitive fellowship opportunities, if applicable. |
| Available Positions |
1
|
Combating climate change requires that we develop new sources of sustainable energy, fuels and chemicals to capture CO2 and to replace petroleum-derived materials. The Buan Lab is engineering natural organisms called methanogens, which grow by producing renewable methane gas that can be used as transportation and rocket fuel. We are engineering these organisms to also produce valuable chemicals such as isoprene, which is used to make rubber and is similar to isopentanol, the main component of gasoline. Ultimately we seek to understand and control how methanogens channel electrons and carbon through metabolism.