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Laura R Jarboe

Laura R Jarboe

Position
  • Professor
Department
  • Chemical and Biological Engineering
Education
Postdoctoral Researcher, University of Florida, Department of Microbiology and Cell Science/Florida Center for Renewable Fuels and Chemicals, 2006-2008 Ph.D. Chemical & Biomolecular Engineering, University of California, Los Angeles, 2006 B.S. Chemical Engineering with Environmental Engineering Certificate, University of Kentucky, 2000

Research
My research area is metabolic engineering, with a focus on understanding inhibition of biocatalyst growth and metabolism, such as that mediated by the desired product, substrate or a growth media contaminant. The goal of understanding the mechanism of the inhibition is subsequent rational engineering of the biocatalyst for increased tolerance. The tools used in my lab include transcriptome analysis, phenotype analysis and directed evolution and reverse engineering of tolerant strains. Bioinformatics and computational biology are especially relevant to the analysis of transcriptome data and in the interpretation of genome sequence data for evolved mutants.

Biorenewables
Carbon-based molecules are the primary basis of the fuels, chemicals and materials required by society. The rise of the chemical engineering profession coincided with developing technology to convert fossil-derived carbon from oil, natural gas and coal to these valuable products. Biorenewables research is developing analogous technologies that instead use biomass-derived carbon. While the chemical engineering principles refined from fossil-derived carbon have direct applicability to this alternative carbon source, new technologies are required for the distinctly different characteristics of biomass-based feedstocks. New breakthroughs are needed in protein engineering, synthetic biology, microbial metabolic engineering, systems biology, separations, reaction engineering, and catalysis to utilize biomass.

Selected Publications
X. Liang, M. Soupir*, S. Rigby, L. Jarboe, W. Zhang. “Flow cytometry is a promising and rapid method for differentiating between freely suspended E. coli and E. coli attached to clay particles” submitted to Applied Microbiology, 2014
T.J. Claypool, D.R. Raman, L.R. Jarboe, D.R Nielsen. “Technoeconomic evaluation of Bio-Based Styrene production by Engineered Escherichia coli” Journal of Industrial Microbiology and Biotechnology, 2014, 41(8):1211-6; DOI 10.1007/s10295-014-1469-5
L.A. Royce, E. Boggess, Y. Fu, P. Liu, J.V. Shanks, J. Dickerson, L. Jarboe. “Transcriptomic analysis of carboxylic acid challenge in Escherichia coli: beyond membrane damage” PLOS ONE 2014, 9(2):e89580; doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0089580
A.L. Teh, D. Layton, D.R. Hyduke, L. Jarboe, D.K. Rollins, Sr. “Data Mining Based on Principal Component Analysis: Application to the Nitric Oxide Response in Escherichia coli” Journal of Statistical Science and Application 2:1-18 (2014)
L. Jarboe* , Z. Chi "Inhibition of microbial biocatalysts by biomass-derived aldehydes and methods for engineering tolerance" pp 101-120 New Developments in Aldehydes Research 2013. ISBN #978-1-62417-090-4.

Contact Info

3051 Sweeney
Ames
,
Iowa
50011-2230
Social Media and Websites

Education

  • Ph.D., Chemical and Biomedical Engineering, University of California, 2006
  • B.S., Chemical Engineering, University of Kentucky, 2000