Matthew Scheier
PhD Student
My name is Matthew Scheier.
I joined the Horsfall Group at the beginning of October 2018 as a PhD student. I completed my undergraduate degree in Biochemistry at the University of Edinburgh and a research Masters in Systems and Synthetic Biology at Imperial College London. I am investigating novel metal nanoparticles accessed through synthetic biology approaches.
Public Abstract
Several industrial processes leave metal ions in solution. It is currently not economically viable to recover these however and so the availability of metals is predicted to become an issue. Microorganisms can recover metals from solution, forming small particles in the process called nanoparticles. Metal nanoparticles have different catalytic, thermal, magnetic, physical, chemical, photoelectrochemical and optical properties compared to their bulk solid counterparts. Therefore, metal nanoparticles have a variety of uses including biosensors, electronics, catalysts, imaging and as antimicrobials. However, their synthesis by chemical or physical methods are often energy intensive. Several proteins and molecules from microorganisms are known or predicted to be involved in producing nanoparticles. My research is to adapt or increase production of these proteins or metabolites, and in some cases combining them, to make the microorganism better at recovering the metals. I am also interested in producing nanoparticles of novel composition, with controlled size, ease of purification, increased stability, that can be directly used in the variety of applications described above.
Scientific Abstract
The criticality of metals is increasing due to modern technologies. Their recovery from many industrial processes is not viable due to the value of the recovered product.
Many microorganisms can recover metals, some produce nanoparticles as a defense mechanism to toxic concentrations of metals. Using synthetic biology these mechanisms can be put under different controls and overexpressed or adapted to improve metal recovery.
My project currently has three approaches: incubating Morganella psychrotolerans in the presence of metals, discovering and adapting the associated proteins responsible to other metals; overexpressing an operon that produces an alternative electron acceptor that acts as a reducing agent on the metal ions in solution; and adapting peptides, proteins and protein compartments for the biomineralization of metals. All approaches involve the use of ICP-OES/MS to examine recovery and UV-Spectroscopy, TEM with EDX and EELS to characterise the nanoparticles. Based on the recovery of metals from solution and the oxidation state of the metal nanoparticle each approach will be evaluated for further work.