NSF funds research on nitrogen fixation

NSF funds research on nitrogen fixation

Himadri B. Pakrasi, professor of biology in Arts & Sciences and director of InCEES, was recently awarded a $1.2-million grant for a collaborative study of cyanobacteria with the ultimate purpose of producing nitrogen-fixing crop plants.
A protein key to the next green revolution sits for its portrait

A protein key to the next green revolution sits for its portrait

Scientists are beginning to talk about re-engineering crop plants so that, like legumes, they will have on-site nitrogen-fixing systems, either in root nodules or in the plant cells themselves. The structure of a protein called NolR that acts as a master off-switch for the nodulation process, published in the April 29 issue of PNAS, brings them one step closer to this goal. 
Creating plants that make their own fertilizer

Creating plants that make their own fertilizer

Much of modern agriculture relies on biologically available nitrogenous compounds (called “fixed” nitrogen) made by an industrial process developed by German chemist Fritz Haber in 1909. Himadri Pakrasi, PhD, a scientist at Washington University in St. Louis, thinks it should be possible to design a better nitrogen-fixing system. His idea is to put the apparatus for fixing nitrogen in plant cells, the same cells that hold the apparatus for capturing the energy in sunlight. The National Science Foundation just awarded Pakrasi and his team $3.87 million to explore this idea further.

Is bacterium renewable source of energy?

A team of researchers headed by biologists at Washington University in St. Louis has sequenced the genome of a unique bacterium that manages two disparate operations — photosynthesis and nitrogen fixation — in one little cell during two distinct cycles daily.

Is bacterium renewable source of energy?

A team of researchers headed by biologists at Washington University has sequenced the genome of a unique bacterium that manages two disparate operations — photosynthesis and nitrogen fixation — in one little cell during two distinct cycles daily.

Single-celled bacterium works 24-7

Researchers at Washington University in St. Louis have gained the first detailed insight into the way circadian rhythms govern global gene expression in Cyanothece, a type of cyanobacterium (blue-green algae) known to cycle between photosynthesis during the day and nitrogen fixation at night.