New Preprint from our Lab! Kaian and Gordon, using data from RaderLab and bioreactor support from Barbara, show it doesn’t matter where the gene goes, it’s all the same to Cyanidioscyzon merolae www.biorxiv.org/content/10.6...

Today in Arab News, How KAUST is transforming waste into wealth by Haifa Alshammari. www.arabnews.com/node/2628729...

Lots of updates to our lab website. It has been a busy year for the Sustainable & Synthetic Biotechnology Group! ssb.kaust.edu.sa

Algae and the Chocolate Factory. Great writeup by KAUST Discovery! discovery.kaust.edu.sa/en/article/2...

Made it to Arab News headlines today: arab.news/g39dc Galdieria blue from chocolate and CO2!

This is my kind of 🔵BLUE SKY🔵 thinking! This was painted by PhD student Mauricio Masson who also helped develop the natural blue pigment. It’s made by microalgae grown on upcycled chocolate waste. + credit @kylelauersen.bsky.social for leading this wildly interesting waste-to-value algae project!

Scientists use algae to convert food waste into sustainable ingredients www.kaust.edu.sa/en/news/scie...

Online now: Elevated carbon dioxide stimulates efficient organic carbon consumption for the unicellular alga Galdieria

Congratulations to new Dr. Melany Villegas from our lab. Foundational to our work on Cyanidioschizon merolae engineering. looking for a great biotechnologist, reach out to Melany!

‼️🚨🗓️ CONTAMCALENDAR 2026 🗓️🚨‼️ Excited to say the ContamCalendar is back for its fifth edition! We’ve created a fresh new design, folding out for an A3 monthly spread. It’s our best yet, we hope you’ll love it 🗓️🦠🧫🍄 Get yours here ➡️ www.contam.club ⬅️

Publication 📰 of former PhD student Malak's final thesis chapter. Investigating terpene synthase subcellular localization in Chlamydomonas🦠. Squalene k.d. does not affect plastid yields & membrane bioreactor high density cultivation on CO2. New Biotechnology. www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...

Congratulations to our PhD Student Melany Villegas-Valencia, who defended last week. Her work was foundational to our engineering efforts in Cyanidioschyzon merolae.

Pretty pink algae

We have a new Porphyridium, can you tell which reactor?

🚨📰New paper from the SSB Group, out in Algal Research! Razan, Gordon, & Sebastian engineered Chlamydomonas 🦠 to make isoprene - then, used 20 parallel bioreactors 💡🧪 coupled to multi-port headspace analysis (HidenAnalytical) to optimize it! www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...

Today, we had the honor of hosting Prof. Sotirios Kampranis from U Copenhagen in the weekly KAUST_BESE student seminar. We heard about biotechnological production of flavors and fragrances as well as Taxol biosynthesis. @clairesale.bsky.social

📣 Are you a creative and articulate plant scientist looking to connect with other like-minded folks? Application is now open for the 2025-2026 Plantae Fellows program!🌱 👉 Learn more and apply by August 31! buff.ly/JqoDSHq #plantscience

I have never heard of this meeting before. Maybe 4-years from now, I’ll be able to attend. Such a rare event seems like it needs more publicity.

Did you know that the red alga Galdieria secretes coproporphyrin IX under certain conditions?

Welcoming @anne-steensma.bsky.social‬ to KAUST from @msudoeplantlab.bsky.social Anne will be with us for 6 months working on Cyanidioschizon merolae engineering.

In less than two weeks it will be time for #AlgalBBB in Phoenix! Looking forward to seeing all of you there and proud that @ASU_AzCATI will have a tour of its facilities. Happy to represent @KAUST_BESE. www.elsevier.com/events/confe...

New #preprint. CO2 stimulates Galdieria to eat organic carbon, even in the dark. Stable isotope applied to algal biotech & 🍫chocolate conversion to algal biomass 🦠 www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...

So pretty. @clairesale.bsky.social #chlamydomonas #algae #kaust

I am thrilled to announce that I have been promoted to Associate Professor effective July 1st. The SSB Lab will continue its mission of innovation and exploration of algal biotechnology at KAUST within the Bioengineering program. Stay up to date with our lab's activities here: ssb.kaust.edu.sa

Stay up to date with the happenings of our lab at KAUST, news, its people and papers can be found on our website: ssb.kaust.edu.sa

Out today in Separation & Purification Technology journal. Sebastian Overmans, PhD, Himanshu Mishra, and Adair Gallo Jr. show how to functionalize microparticles and use them as adsorbants for terpene extraction from microbial cultures. Illustration Heno Hwang www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...

Grateful for this lovely write up that came out this weekend: www.kaust.edu.sa/en/news/the-...

We were happy to host Prof. Kirill Alexandrov from Queensland University of Technology. Hope to see you again soon!

Broke 500 citations in 2024 for the first time! Algal 🦠 biotech 🤖🧬 is not a highly cited 📰 field, so feeling good about this one. Hard work of all the students, PostDocs, and collaborators on our team.

Officially no longer an Early Career Researcher. 10-years ago to the day I defended my PhD at Bielefeld University.

Our coffee shop guy is honing his skills. 😸

Now that’s a healthy Chlamydomonas culture! #algae #biotechnology

New paper alert 😎🔔🚨. We present a standardized protocol for the polyextremophile Cyanidioschizon merolae 🦠 transformation🧬! Together with our team at ASU AzCATI🇺🇸, and Uni Northern BC 🇨🇦 #openaccess #algae #Biotechnology www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...

Is there a #followfriday here? Finding it harder to grow a network than that other site. I post about our work on all things #Algae #Biotechnology 🦠🧫🧬

New paper from our lab. Last chapter of @sagutierrezz.bsky.social ‘s thesis. Using plastid redox to drive sesquiterpene functionalization in Chlamydomonas chemistry-europe.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/... #openaccess #algae #terpenes 🧬🦠🧫

Some of the best lab scale photo bioreactors out there. celldeg.com

Gordon is at it again this week. High throughput Chlamydomonas engineering

4 New Faculty Positions at Cambridge University in the School of Biological Sciences www.bio.cam.ac.uk/news/school-...

Thankful for this Notice of Award from Office of Naval Research Global! This will support our work on engineering Cyanidiophyceae algae for the next three years!

Humbled and honored bese.kaust.edu.sa/news/detail/...

RP PLS! Iʻm hiring 3 postdocs at U Hawaiʻi to study yeast diversity and evolution, marine fungi, and the genomics of microbiomes in experimental foodwebs. All of these projects have existing datasets and LATITUDE to pursue individual interests and "blue sky" ideas www.dropbox.com/scl/fi/5d7u4...

Congratulations to our newest PhD graduate Razan who successfully defended her thesis today at KAUST

Experimenting with pretty ways to display our algae collection. These bottles with agar are great for long term storage.

Molnar Lab is also looking for a Postdoctoral Research Associate in alga synthetic/engineering biology in order to lead the development of systems for precise nuclear regulation of the #plastome in the green alga #Chlamydomonas reinhardtii. #PlantSciJobs elxw.fa.em3.oraclecloud.com/hcmUI/Candid...

Celebrating the TAs of BioE lab course today.

This is what it looks like when you run 30 simultaneous photobioreactors. Algenuity isn’t yet here but their reactors are fantastic for algal growth and physiology tests.

Cross posting. Apparently we are here now. Little bit of Chlamydomonas screening for you.

Was super interesting to visit Bilbao and University of Basque Country this week! Thank you for the hospitality 😎

At HHU Düsseldorf today. Hope to see some of you