Professor Ahner is the Chair of the Department of Biological and Environmental Engineering. Her research in environmental biotechnology explores how organisms adapt to trace metal stress in the environment and how they in turn influence the form of metals in the environment – for example how plants solubilize, take up, detoxify and sequester metals. Her laboratory group focuses on research questions involving intracellular detoxification mechanisms and how biological processes affect the biogeochemical cycling of metals in the natural environment and in engineered systems. One application of this research is to phytoremediation, the use of plants to remove metals from contaminated soils.
As part of a collaborative effort with other faculty on campus, she is interested in biomolecular farming or the production of specialty enzymes and proteins in transgenic plants. Her group is focused on how the hydroponic growth medium composition can be manipulated to optimize transgenic protein expression. They are examining the trace metal bioavailability and other nutrients such as nitrogen.
Professor Ahner received her doctorate at MIT in the Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering, and spent two years as a research associate in the Department of Geology at Princeton University.
Project 1 - Metal Chelators in Sea Water
Project 2 - Developing diagnostic proteomic tools for algal biofuel production
Project 3 - Production of high value industrial enzymes in plant and algae chloroplasts
LAB TEAM:
Tiffany Gupton-Campolongo, Ph.D., Postdoctoral Associate tlg29@cornell.edu
Michael Walsh, PhD Student mjw66@cornell.edu
AHNER ENVIRONMENTAL BIOTECHNOLOGY LAB
B49 Riley Robb Hall
607.255.6850
Courses currently taught:
- BEE 2510 Engineering for a Sustainable Society
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- Link to Course description
104 Riley Robb Hall
Cornell University
Ithaca NY 14853-5701
Phone: 607.255.2270
E-mail: baa7@cornell.edu