Energy is such a constant presence in our lives, we often take it for granted. Like the clean water that runs from our taps, we just expect energy to be cheap and ever-present, whether it’s the electricity that charges our phones, the natural gas that heats our houses or the oil that makes our cars … Read the rest »
Researchers in the Alper Lab have used a combination of metabolic engineering and directed evolution to develop a new, mutant yeast strain that could lead to a more efficient biofuel production process that would make biofuels more economically competitive with conventional fuels. Their findings were published online in the journal Metabolic Engineering in March.
Beyond … Read the rest »
Hal Alper, assistant professor and Fellow of Paul D. and Betty Robertson Meek Centennial Assistant Professorship in Chemical Engineering, has been selected as a 2014 Camille Dreyfus Teacher-Scholar. The Camille Dreyfus Teacher-Scholar Awards Program supports the research and teaching careers of talented young faculty in the chemical sciences and provides an unrestricted research award … Read the rest »
Sophomore Allison Wagman recently won first place in the Undergraduate Research Competition hosted by the Cockrell School’s Student Engineering Council.
Allison’s poster, “Yeast Promoter Mutations Modeled by Nucleosome Affinity”, showcased her research conducted alongside Professor Hal Alper to create novel synthetic parts for cells.
Her research involved creating new promoters for yeast using a model-guided … Read the rest »
Assistant professor Hal Alper and his team of students have developed a new source of renewable energy, a biofuel from genetically engineered yeast cells and ordinary table sugar. This yeast produces oils and fats, known as lipids, that can be used in place of petroleum-derived products.
Given that the yeast cells grow on sugars, Alper … Read the rest »
Assistant Professor Hal Alper has been selected to attend the National Academy of Engineering’s (NAE) 2013 Frontiers of Engineering Symposium September 19-21 in Wilmington, Delaware.
Eighty-one of the nation’s brightest young engineers will participate in this year’s annual symposium, which is attended by invitation only. Participants are usually nominated by NAE members or department chairs … Read the rest »
Chemical engineering was mentioned in four of the Cockrell School’s Top 10 stories of 2012
Hal Alper has won the 2013 Biotechnology and Bioengineering Daniel I.C. Wang Award for his research in metabolic engineering and synthetic biology. The award is presented by John Wiley & Sons, Inc. and the journal Biotechnology and Bioengineering. The award recognizes a young member of the biotechnology/bioengineering academic community for commitment to the journal and … Read the rest »