Bernardo has now left the University
He was a SynBio Fund grantee
Project: Optimised lux reporters for eukaryotic systems - Lead
Biography:
BA in Biochemistry, Pontificia Universidad Católica de Chile.
I am a 3rd year PhD student at Plant Sciences in the Haseloff lab. Currently I am working with Marchantia polymorpha, a simple plant model system for Plant Synthetic Biology, studying the molecular genetics involved in meristem establishment and maintenance. I have experience with next-generation sequencing technologies and the bioinformatics skills required for genome assembly of plant systems, as well as routine Gibson Assembly cloning of constructs for plant transformation.
As a side-project, I have been collecting water samples around the world and have isolated several strains of bioluminescent bacteria (>15) from the Pacific, Atlantic, Mediterranean and Caribbean oceans. I have performed a preliminary characterization of these strains and found differences of brightness of about 100 fold in comparison to Vibrio fischeri.