University of Sydney
Research Field: Synthetic Biology
Dr Yu Heng Lau and his team are developing new bio-based carbon capture technologies to help address the challenge of climate change by mimicking the way that marine bacteria convert carbon dioxide into useful products such as biofuels. They are using protein engineering and synthetic biology to design artificial versions of these bacterial carbon capture systems, which can function independently from their original bacterial source.
Dr Lau’s work on ‘recoding’ genomes was featured in New Scientist and his research was interpreted as a song and featured on FBI Radio’s “Live from the Lab”. He was been involved in chemistry careers events and in organising the Poladian Project, a week-long public lecture series starring internationally-renowned scientists
Dr Yu Heng Lau was awarded his PhD in Chemistry in 2015 at the University of Cambridge. He is currently a Senior Lecturer and Westpac Research Fellow in the School of Chemistry at the University of Sydney.