Environmental Lecture Series: Genome Science in Bioenergy, Carbon Cycling, and Remediation
This event has been canceled.
Final public lecture in the Spring 2008 Environmental Lecture Series featuring Emerging Technologies and the Environment
The Role of Genome Science in Bioenergy, Carbon Cycling, and Environmental Remediation
presented by:
Michael L. Knotek, PhD, Knotek Scientific Consulting
Michael Knotek has more than 40 years of experience in the conduct and management of collaborative multidisciplinary national and international research at DOE laboratories and user facilities. He has specialized in managing transitions in scientific and technological communities and institutions from the federal agency level through national laboratories, facilities and programs. This work involved multiple DOE laboratories, federal and state agencies, universities, and industrial partners in establishing scientific goals, setting funding priorities, and guiding major new investments. He has built strong working relationships throughout the DOE research complex and with international R&D institutions and industry. He has attracted world-renowned scientific talent to DOE institutions and continues to serve as a resource to DOE, NSF, and other agencies for developing, managing, and evaluating large research projects and laboratory environments. From the late 1990s through the present he has worked with industry, national laboratories, and others to develop and apply the tools of science and technology and applied them in numerous situations. Since the mid-1980s, Dr. Knotek has led the creation or restructuring of major DOE scientific projects and communities, including synchrotron radiation (1984), environmental science (1989-94), fusion energy sciences (1996), Terascale advanced scientific computing (1998-99), and Post-genomic biology (2000-present). In his research career Dr. Knotek published over 100 articles on research in solid state physics and materials science.
Abstract:
The Department of Energy is a mission agency with numerous complex missions that require continually expanding frontiers of science for solutions. Pursuing these missions has led to dozens of Nobel Prizes and fostered the development of 19 national laboratories and thousands of academic research efforts in virtually all areas of science. Current energy challenges facing the nation and the world are growing energy demand, energy security, and climate change – meeting these challenges simultaneously is a mind boggling task which will be discussed in some detail. Three topics in science that will be discussed are: The roles for genome based biology in creating new energy sources; Understanding the processes and potential for biological systems in the global carbon cycle viv-a-vis climate research and carbon biosequestration; andBiology in subsurface environmental processes, and their application to bioremediation and carbon management. It is a fascinating story where the fusion of global energy needs, emerging climate change, and social systems present an unprecedented challenge to the peoples of the world. Science has a critical role to play.