Hamood Qureshi
MIT Department: Chemical Engineering
Faculty Mentor: Prof. Ariel Furst
Research Supervisor: Ben Burke, Yoo Kyung Go
Undergraduate Institution: Louisiana State University
Website:
Biography
Hamood Qureshi is a Chemical Engineering senior at Louisiana State University witha minor in Chemistry and Louisiana Service and Leadership. Over the past 4 years, he has focused his career on addressing the climate crisis in Louisiana, with a specific emphasis on how green technologies can be implemented into industrial plants to protect communities inCancer Alley. At LSU, he works with Dr. Kevin McPeak on designing nanoparticle catalysts for hydrogen generation, and at MIT, he works with Dr. Ariel Furst on using microbial cocultures for carbon dioxide reduction. He has also completed internships withAir Liquide Electronics and Marathon Petroleum. He studied abroad as an LSU Global Ambassador in Ghana and has scored a film about environmental issues in Louisiana. He plans to attend graduate school and eventually become a professor, where he wants to help his students learn about how they can use their engineering education to make an impact on the communities that raised them. Outside of school, he is an avid reader and plays both guitar and bass in his band, Wave Runner.
Abstract
Nanoscale Legos: Exploring Click Chemistry to Optimize DNA Self-Assembly of Microbial Cocultures
Hamood Qureshi1, Benjamin Burke2, and Ariel Furst2
1Cain Department of Chemical Engineering, Louisiana State University
2Department of Chemical Engineering, Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Developing methods to sustainably and efficiently repurpose CO2 from the atmosphere is an important aspect of addressing climate change. Microbial coculture-based enzymatic catalysis is an easily modified platform that can be explored to turn CO2 into useful chemicals, such as fuels and bioplastics. Here, I explore the use of an S. Elongatus and A. Vinelandii coculture that uses photosynthesis to turn CO2 into polyhydroxybutyrate, a biopolymer that can be used to make plastics. To optimize the diffusion of metabolites between these two microbes, the cell surfaces were modified with dibenzocyclooctyne (DBCO) groups, which were then modified with an azide-modified single strand DNA (ssDNA). These ssDNA strands can be bonded to each other at variable lengths to control the arrangement of these two microbes. Here, we report results for culturing both S. Elongatus and A. Vinelandii in a coculture CAV media. In addition, we examine how different DBCO linkers affect cell viability and cell surface modification. Using this data, I will explore different cellular microstructures as well as different cocultures to further develop methods to turn CO2 into useful bioproducts using microbial catalysts.