Dr. Alina Corcoran Presents at 2023 DOE Peer Review

Dr. Alina Corcoran Presents at 2023 DOE Peer Review

Dr. Alina Corcoran gave a talk at the 2023 DOE Peer Review Monday April 3, 2023 on her project, “Optimizing Selection Pressures and Pest Management to Maximize Algal Biomass Yield”.

The goal of this project is to use a field-adapted industry strain and field-lab-field iterations across unique field sites to 1. quantify and balance selection pressures across the lab and field and 2. optimize processes including pest management

For each algal strain, this project aims to balance indoor and outdoor selection pressures, optimize pest management and improve field strain performance, resiliency, and composition. They also will characterize the genotypes and phenotypes of the lab and field cultivars to determine trait loss, conservation, or enhancement.

Another task is applying a combination of mutagenesis and directed evolution to a field-adapted algal strain to improve its productivity, stability, and biomass composition.

The goal is to have a 50% improvement in harvest yield, 50% improvement in robustness, and 20% improvement in conversion yield.

Dr. Corcoran spoke of the teams different research approaches, impact, progress and outcomes. This talk was a great opportunity to highlight the Corcoran team’s progress.  Thanks to all team members at the New Mexico Consortium, Los Alamos National Lab, Sandia National Lab, Qualitas Health, Cyanotech Corporation, Phase Genomics, New Mexico State University, University of California San Diego and Colorado State University.

This project is supported by the New Mexico Consortium.