Dr Tanai Cardona

Tanai Cardona

Reader in Synthetic Biology and Biotechnology

School of Biological and Behavioural Sciences
Queen Mary University of London
www.qmul.ac.uk/sbbs/staff/dr-tanai-cardona---.html
Centre for Biodiversity and Sustainability
Centre for Evolutionary and Functional Genomics
Centre for Molecular Cell Biology
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Research

Photosynthesis, Photosystem, Directed Evolution, Molecular Evolution, Cyanobacteria

Interests

I lead QMUL’s Molecular Evolution Lab.

Our research focuses on resolving how and when the molecular complexes of photosynthesis originated, how photosynthesis diversified through the long history of our planet, and the implications this knowledge has on the origin and early evolution of life on Earth, and beyond.

Our research also aims to harness and develop directed evolution methods, in combination with the insights we've gained on the origin and evolution of photosynthesis, to engineer light-driven enzymes with novel properties or chemistries as future sustainable biotechnologies.

The collective expertise of my group is at the intersection of molecular evolution, bioinformatics, genomics, biochemistry, biophysics, structural biology, and synthetic biology.