MSI PI Larry Wackett, a professor in the Department of Biochemistry, Molecular Biology, and Biophysics and member of the BioTechnology Institute, is a co-founder of Minnepura Technologies, a startup that uses bacteria to purify water. The technology, based on research by Professor Wackett and his colleague Associate Professor Alptekin Aksan, uses bacteria trapped in silica beads. The beads are placed in contaminated water and the bacteria break down the contaminating chemicals. An article about Minnepura Technologies appears on the OVPR’s Inquiry blog.
Professor Wackett is a long-time user of the Supercomputing Institute. He and his group are using MSI’s computational resources to data-mine genomes for new functionalities, support protein crystallographic studies, and perform structural comparison and substrate docking experiments.