On September 30th, George Kapetanakis (on the right in the picture) publicly presented his PhD work and successfully received his diploma. His research dealt with the poorly known process of amino-acid excretion by yeast cells. He characterized two novel amino-acid exporters and showed that these proteins importantly contribute to cross-feeding by yeast of co-cultivated lactic acid bacteria which cannot grow without an external supply of amino acids. G Kapetanakis also showed that the same proteins mediate excretion of amino acids and cross-feeding of lactic acid bacteria by the Ethanol Red yeast strain used in industrial bioethanol production. This observation is important since contamination of fermenters by lactic acid bacteria is a major issue in bioethanol production. We thus proposed in a novel patent of ULB that the utilization of yeast mutants lacking specific amino-acid exporters reduce the risk of contaminations of bioethanol production tanks by lactic acid bacteria. George Kapetanakis has now been hired as Research and Innovation Scientist in the young Paleo startup (see previous post). Congratulations and thanks to George for his scientific achievements and their potential industrial applications, and good luck with the new job in Paleo!
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