Research Interests

My project is aimed at selecting bacterial consortia from different marine habitats for efficient degradation of chitin (isolated from seafood waste) into highly valuable components for industrial applications, i.e. chitosan and small chito-oligomers.
Metagenomics and metatranscriptomics analyses will be performed on the best consortia in order to understand community dynamics in the process of chitin degradation. These techniques will also help to find new chitin degraders and novel chitinolytic enzymes involved in the chitin degradation pathways.

Thesis: Deciphering artificially selected marine bacterial communities for enhanced chitinous waste biodegradation.

Supervisor: Isabelle GEORGE

Co-supervisor: Rodrigo COSTA, Instituto Superior Técnico, Universidade de Lisboa, Portugal