Berat Haznedaroglu

The global demand for petroleum as a transportation and heating fuel is predicted to increase 40% by 2025. Liquid biofuels from plants and microalgae feed stocks represent a renewable, sustainable alternative to petroleum energy when greenhouse gases released during the combustion of these biofuels are partially neutralized by the carbon dioxide required for their growth.

The greatly minimized acreage estimates, high lipid content and growth rate, and more efficient carbon dioxide sequestration capacity suggests that biofuels derived from lipids produced in microalgae may circumvent many of the limitations ascribed to petroleum fuel and plant-based biofuels. As a postdoctoral fellow with the YCEI, Berat worked with Dr. Jordan Peccia in the Department of Chemical and Environmental Engineering on two fundamental aspects of microalgae biofuel production: microalgae functional genomics and population stability. 

Since whole genomes have not been sequenced for lipid enriched microalgae, the team is utilizing high throughput, next generation sequencing technologies, such as 454 pyrosequencing, and Illumina sequencing to describe the transcriptomes and explore functional genetics in lipid-enriched microalgae. Berat is now an Assistant Professor in the Department of Environmental and Water Resources Engineering at the University of Buffalo.