Amit Kumar Singh: Plant Physiology First Author

Amit Kumar Singh, first author of “Rubisco Regulation in Response to Altered Carbon Status in the Cyanobacterium Synechococcus elongatus PCC 7942″

Current Position: Postdoctoral Research Associates, Plant Research Laboratory, Michigan State University, East Lansing, Michigan, USA

Education:

Ph.D., Biotechnology, International Center for Genetic Engineering and Biotechnology (ICGEB) & Jamia Hamdard, New Delhi, India

M. Tech., Agricultural and Food Engineering, Indian Institute of Technology Kharagpur, West Bengal, India

Non-scientific Interests:

Badminton, Bowling, Travelling

Brief bio:

My broad research interests relate to contributing to green biotechnologies through the engineering of photosynthetic cell factories (e.g., microalgae and cyanobacteria) for production of bioproducts. I started my research career with the idea to make biofuel from microalgae.  During my post-graduation and doctoral studies, I studied various approaches to improve lipid accumulation in microalgae including nutrient stress and genetic manipulation. During my doctoral studies, I became fascinated by the carbon concentrating mechanism (CCM) of microalgae which is a poorly studied system in these photosynthetic microbes yet plays an important role in central carbon metabolism. I continue following this interest in the lab of Dr. Daniel Ducat, using both experimental and computational models to understand CCM in cyanobacteria. In Ducat lab, my main goal is to understand dynamic regulation of CCM, particularly as it relates to fluctuating metabolic demands in engineered cyanobacteria by using high throughput technologies such as quantitative proteomics, fluorescence reporter-based microscopy and image analysis. Overall, I hope my contributions in this research area may enable the development of strains with improved photosynthesis efficiency and sustainable bioproduction.