Strategic Advisory Board
The Strategic Advisory Board (SAB) is an independent body consisting of selected high level experts and stakeholders who are not partners in the MaCuMBA project, but are willing to advise and support the Project Steering Committee on annual basis. The aims of the SAB are:
- To introduce stakeholder requirements into the development of MaCuMBA technologies and end products and ensure that their requirements are integrated into the MaCuMBA concepts
- To review the overall progress of the project
- To advise the Project Steering Committee on changes in societal and consumer priorities that may impact on the projects objectives and expected impacts
- To propose changes to the direction of the project in line with stakeholder/user priorities for maximising the exploitation and benefits for the industry
- To support the dissemination of the project results
The members of the MaCuMBA's Advisory Board are:
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Prof. Dr. Jens Harder Max Planck Institute for Marine Microbiology - Department of Microbiology Prof. Dr. Jens Harder is a Senior Scientist at the department of Microbiology of the Max Planck Institute for Marine Microbiology and Professor, granted by the University of Bremen, since 2012. As chemist and biochemist, Jens admires the chances evolution has used to create unique catalysts. He characterizes novel enzymes in the microbial monoterpene metabolism, from the development of an enzyme assay to the clarification of the structure and mechanism. Ever since his start at the Max Planck Institute for Marine Microbiology in 1992, he has taken the challenge to take the "wild" microorganisms in culture. Besides the biogeography of planctomycetes, the degradation of polysaccharides by flavobacteria is currently a scientific focus in the cultivation of marine microbes. With more than 60 publications in peer reviewed journals, Jens' research interest focuses on individuals. |
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Dr. Paul R. Jensen Scripps Institution of Oceanography - University of California San Diego Dr. Paul Jensen is a Research Scientist at Scripps Institution of Oceanografy (UC San Diego). His research addresses fundamental questions about the diversity and distributions of specific groups of bacteria in the marine environment. These studies frequently target bacteria such as the actinomycetes, which are capable of producing biologically active secondary metabolites. The compounds produced by these bacteria represent an important resource for drug discovery and provide opportunities to explore the functional roles of secondary metabolites in marine systems. Their studies employ molecular as well as culture-dependent techniques and include the analysis of genome sequences to explore the ecology and evolution of marine bacteria. They apply phylogenetic techniques to understand the relationships among bacteria and to trace the evolutionary history of the genes they maintain, many of which are subject to horizontal gene transfer. Paul's research expertise includes: cultivation of marine bacteria, microbial distribution and interactions with marine plants and invertebrates, sequence-based approaches to the discovery of natural products from marine microbes, comparative genomics, microbial chemical ecology, molecular evolution and natural product biosynthesis. |
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Prof. Dr. Ian Joint Marine Biological Association of the UK Dr. Ian Joint is a microbiologist with interests in understanding how microbes interact to control the fundamental biogeochemical cycles that maintain the health of the oceans. Recent research has included elucidating the mechanisms involved in cross-kingdom cell-to-cell signaling between bacteria and eukaryotes: the effect of ocean acidification on marine phytoplankton and bacteria: and an assessment of bacterial diversity in temperate waters utilizing high-throughput DNA sequencing techniques. These recent studies, in collaboration with Jack Gilbert (now at Argonne National Laboratory, USA) used 16S tag-sequencing approaches to demonstrate that there are about 20,000 bacterial species in every 10 litres of surface seawater. A six-year time series showed distinct and repeatable seasonal patterns in abundance, raising interesting questions about what constitutes a bacterial community in the sea. He also has a long-standing interest in bringing novel microbes into laboratory culture so that they can be used in biodiscovery research.Current research focuses on how natural microbial assemblages respond to temperature change and he also continues research on how bacteria influence the development of the green alga, Ulva. Ian holds an emeritus position at the Plymouth Laboratory of the Marine Biological Association of the UK. |
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Dr. Anton F. Post The Josephine Bay Paul Center - Marine Biological Laboratory Dr. Anton Post is a microbiologist who specializes in the molecular ecology of marine microorganisms with a focus on abundant cyanobacterial species. He combines his training in microbiology and molecular biology to investigate nitrogen assimilation pathways and their evolution in these phototrophs. Dr. Post has pioneered the role of these pathways in nitrogen stress responses of cyanobacteria and has developed molecular diagnostics tools to probe their nitrogen status. He discovered the widespread utilization of cyanate by microbes in marine environments and documents the evolution of transport systems for this nitrogen compound. Developing projects in his group include the architecture and ecological roles of microbial communities on desert trees in addition to managing his research program, and the distribution of predatory bacteria in marine environments and their microbial food web interactions. Post is also an NSF Program Director in Biological Oceanography where he administers proposals/awards in marine microbiology. |
