Lukas Mühlbauer
PhD Student
Hi everyone, I’m Lukas!
I’m originally from Koblenz/Germany, a city between Cologne and Frankfurt. After coming to the University of Edinburgh in 2009 to do a BSc in Infectious Diseases, I first joined the Horsfall Group in 2014 for my MSc Biotechnology research project on platinum nanoparticle production by Desulfovibrio. I then finished an MPhil on host-pathogen interactions in bovine tuberculosis, after which I was keen to get back into the field of industrial biotechnology.
Returning to the Horsfall Group, I started my PhD project titled “Engineering bacteria for industrially extreme conditions” in October 2017.
In my free time, I enjoy taking photos (www.instagram.com/lfm89), making music (www.soundcloud.com/lufremu), playing squash and tinkering with gadgets such as drones and 3D printers. Sparked by my interest in 3D printers, I have recently received an Innovation Initiative Grant from The University of Edinburgh to purchase two Prusa i3 MK3 printers for the Horsfall Group. Using these, we are now offering a service for people to make their own laboratory equipment (e.g. racks and gel combs) from corn-based biodegradable plastic.
Public Abstract
For my PhD project, “Engineering bacteria for industrially extreme conditions”, I’ve been working together with an industrial partner who has developed a novel anaerobic digester. Anaerobic digestion is a process in which complex communities of microorganisms break down organic matter in the absence of oxygen. I am particularly interested in using this technology to make value-added products from sustainable feedstocks, such as seaweed. At the beginning of my first year, I acquired samples from the company’s reactor and characterised microbial communities though next-gen sequencing approaches with the aim to identify key species. I then went on to isolate several species from digestate samples and characterised their ability to produce volatile fatty acids, which are of interest for the chemical industry. I am now in my second year and have started engineering these non-model organisms. The aim is to increase their resistance to the harsh conditions in bioreactors and investigate whether volatile fatty acid production yields can be improved.
Scientific Abstract
Understanding how microbial community composition relates to process parameters and intermediate yields at different stages of anaerobic digestion (AD) can assist in optimising these stages and controlling the production of the desired end products.
The results of this project suggest that changes in key species abundance follow the longitudinal separation of AD stages (i.e. hydrolysis, acidogenesis, acetogenesis, methanogenesis) and that microbial communities become less feedstock-specific as biological matter is digested from complex molecules to more simple compounds.
The isolation and identification of species involved in AD and the production of volatile fatty acids (VFAs) was carried out, with the aim to better steer the process towards the production of butyric acid, a platform chemical for biofuel and high-value biochemicals. It is planned to enhance the performance of these isolated non-model organisms under industrially extreme conditions (e.g. low pH) by developing and applying novel synthetic biology tools. In particular, two species of the genus Clostridium producing high yields of butyric acid as well as hydrogen gas have been isolated and characterised.