The United States Department of Energy Office of Science(link is external) published a highlight of Professor Michelle O'Malley's scientific research(link is external), How Fungal Enzymes Break Down Plant Cell Walls. Professor O'Malley was the Principal Investigator on the research.
The research focuses on how Lignocellulose-degrading enzyme complexes could improve biofuel production, the findings highlight the power of fungal enzymes in breaking down lignocellulose. These enzymes could be harnessed to develop novel strategies for efficient biofuel production.
The work of the O’Malley group analyzes the function of anaerobic gut fungi and the potential benefits to bio-based pharmaceuticals and less expensive biofuels. Presently, biofuel is developed primarily from food crops that leads to increased competition for crops grown for fuel or food, which could be alleviated with a resourceful process for ethanol to be converted from sugars.
Current research in The O'Malley Lab includes analysis of innovative enzymes from anaerobic gut fungi, metabolic engineering for enhanced anaerobic cooperation, engineering of synthetic cellulose-degrading complexes (cellulosomes) for consolidated bioprocessing, and deciphering the structurefunction relationship of membrane proteins within microbes.
This year, Professor O’Malley has received the ACS Polymeric Materials: Science and Engineering Young Investigator Award(link is external) in April, was named a Scholar by the Henry & Camille Dreyfus Foundation(link is external), in July, recognizing outstanding young faculty in the chemical sciences who have demonstrated excellence in research and a commitment to furthering education in the chemical sciences, and was the recipient of a Rising Star Award from the American Chemical Society in October.
Professor O’Malley has also been honored with the 2016 Presidential Early Career Award for Scientists and Engineers(link is external), 2015 National Science Foundation CAREER Award(link is external), 2015 Cottage Health - UCSB Special Research Award, 2015 MIT Technology Review Top 35 Innovators Under 35(link is external), 2014 TechConnect Innovation Award(link is external), and 2013 U.S. Department of Energy Early Career Award(link is external).
O’Malley is an inventor of 4 patents/patent applications, including “Methods and Compositions for Redesigning Secreted Proteases for Therapeutic Use,” “Bioproduction of Methyl Methacrylate,” “Production of Biofuels from Novel Fungal Strains and Enzymes Derived Therefrom,” and “Novel Polyketide Synthase Domains from Fungal Organisms.”
She is also the author of over 30 scientific publications, with manuscripts published in Science(link is external), Nature Microbiology,(link is external) and Nature Genetics(link is external), as well as, Metabolic Engineering(link is external), Frontiers in Microbiology(link is external), BMC Genomics(link is external), ACS-Chemical Biology(link is external), Anaerobe(link is external), Bioengineered(link is external), WIRES(link is external), and Biotechnology and Bioengineering(link is external).
And, in mid-July, the O'Malley Lab joined with the Joint BioEnergy Institute(link is external), a Department of Energy Bioenergy Research Center(link is external), to develop new bio-based products and paths towards renewable energy.
Professor O’Malley graduated from Carnegie Mellon University(link is external), with a BS in both Chemical Engineering and Biomedical Engineering, and a PhD from the University of Delaware(link is external) in Chemical Engineering, followed by a USDA-NIFA Postdoctoral Fellowship at MIT in the Department of Biology Broad Institute(link is external).
