Postdoctoral Fellow

Department of Chemical Engineering
Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Room: 66-425
77 Massachusetts Ave.
Cambridge, MA 02139 USA

Phone: (617) 258-8037
E-mail: nielsend@mit.edu

Curriculum Vitae

Education
Ph.D. Chemical Engineering
Queen's University at Kingston, 2006

B.S. Chemical Engineering
University of Colorado at Boulder, 2001

Research Description
My research is focused on the synthesis of hydrocarbons for use as alternative fuels via the use of engineered microorganisms.  Although the majority of public and commercial interest has been, and continues to be centered on the development of ethanol as an ideal gasoline alternative, other fermentation products can also be synthesized from the same or similar natural feedstocks and offer distinct advantages over ethanol.  For instance, while ethanol is used in conventional vehicles, its content is limited to low percentage blends with gasoline due to material and mechanical incompatibilities with current automotive designs.  Thus, the use of fuels with significantly higher ethanol contents will not be compatible for powering most of the vehicles presently on the road and will necessitate the redesign of modern vehicles.  On the other hand, slightly longer chain alcohols, such as butanol and pentanol, have physical, chemical, and thermodynamic properties that are more akin to those of conventional gasoline, thus making them more compatible with current automotive designs and a more attractive prospect as a substitute for gasoline. 

I am interested in utilizing the tools of metabolic engineering and molecular biology to improve upon the natural butanol synthesis pathway of Clostridium acetobutylicum.  Such improvements may include the reduction of undesirable end-products, enhancement of product yields, elevated solvent tolerance, facilitated product recovery, and simplification of the fermentation process as a whole.  These improvements are all directed towards allowing butanol fermentation to become a more economically viable process.