Lecture
Top Lectures: Mark Bisschops
- Date
- Thursday 27 February 2020
- Time
- Series
- Top Lectures 2020
- Location
-
Sylvius
Sylviusweg 72
2333 BE Leiden - Room
- 1.5.31
Be welcome at the Top Lectures from the Institute Biology Leiden! Twice a month researchers at the IBL invite (inter)national speakers to give a masterclass to students and hold a public accessible lecture for a general audience. Afterwards, there is opportunity for a drink. Access is free of charge!
The programme is as follows:
- 15.00 - Masterclass for students
- 16.00 - Public lecture for general audience and students
- 17.00 - Drinks for all
- 18.00 - End
Your host for this edition will be Professor of Industrial biotechnology Han de Winde. He invited Mark Bisschops, Industrial Microbiologist at TU Delft. Mark will talk about yeast physiology at near-zero growth rates.
Short summary: Non-dividing yeast cells can strongly contribute to addressing the major challenges our society currently face. Saccharomyces cerevisiae and other yeasts are major industrial workhorses in the sustainable production of commodity chemicals and pharmaceuticals. However, in many biotechnology processes, biomass is a by-product, and growth should be minimized to increase product yields. S. cerevisiae strongly enhances our knowledge of cellular processes and mechanisms in humans, including ageing-related diseases.
To date, the best-studied non-dividing yeast cultures are stationary phase cultures; batch cultures in which growth ceased due to depletion of essential nutrients. The virtual absence of metabolic activity due to this starvation, however, severely limits the use of these cells both as cell factory and as a model for metabolically active, non-dividing metazoan cells.
To overcome these limitations, nutrient-limited retentostat cultures can be used to reproducibly achieve near-zero growth in aerobic and anaerobic yeast cultures. We will focus on near-zero growth physiology and molecular responses, especially in the interplay between cellular energetics, ageing and neurodegenerative diseases.