Ultrasonic evolution of microalgae: A Darwinian approach for biofuel production

This project intends to use a simple Darwinian approach to modify the mechanical resistance of the cellwall structure of microalgae. Microalgae are potential sources of fuel and other valuable chemicals, but the extraction process of such chemicals requires the cell disruption, which is an energy-demanding task. The basic idea is to start from an initial batch of microalgae, sort out the cells exhibiting lower mechanical resistance, let them reproduce, and repeat these steps until a new strain of cells emerges. Practically, a microfluidic device will be used to measure the deformation of individual cells subjected to ultrasounddriven mechanical stimuli and automatically sort out the cells showing larger deformations, and thus lower mechanical resistance. If successful, this method would not only be a breakthrough technology for the biofuel industry, but would also open the door for new approaches of directed evolution of unicellular organisms.