Nomura Research Group

Christopher T. Nomura, Ph.D.

Christopher (Chris) Nomura was born in East L.A. and grew up in Southern California, spending time between East and South Central Los Angeles. He got his B.A. with honor in Biology from UC Santa Cruz where he studied elephant seal immunology and physiology in the laboratory of Dr. C. Leo Ortiz. He received his Ph.D. from The Pennsylvania State University where he studied cyanobacterial physiology and electron transport proteins in the lab of Dr. Donald A. Bryant. Chris did his post-doctoral work in Japan in the Polymer Chemistry Laboratory at The RIKEN Institute under the supervision of Dr. Yoshiharu Doi. Chris is currently an Assistant Professor of Biochemistry at SUNY-ESF.

Hoa Nguyen Alumni

Hoa is a Biochemistry alumna from SUNY-ESF. Her research involved protein engineering of Escherichia coli through cloning, polymerase chain reaction (PCR), and transformation to produce recombinant bacteria strains that will produce polyhydroxyalkanoates. Currently, she is working towards her Doctor of Pharmacy degree.

Greg Boyd Alumni

Gregory D. Boyd graduated in December 2007 with a Bachelors of Science degree in Biotechnology. During the 2.5 years he spent here at SUNY-ESF he has made many contributions to the college. One of his biggest accomplishments is the Biodiesel Demonstration facility he had set up and operated. Since the project began the school is now fueling their fleet vehicles on B20 produced on campus. His hobbies include adventuring of any sort...

Qin Wang Student

Qin is a Biochemistry graduate student. The goal of her study is to find which genes are involved in PHA synthesis in Pseudomonas putida grown on different carbon sources. Her work is focusing on comparing the differences of the gene expression levels of P. putida grown on different carbon sources, and also comparing the expression levels of genes involved in PHA synthesis when grown under various conditions using quantitative RT-PCR.

Matthew Martino Student

Matthew is majoring in Chemistry at SUNY-ESF (Natural and Synthetic Polymers option) and minoring in Entrepreneurship at Syracuse University's Whitman School of Management. He has been involved in growth experiments examining PHA production from waste carbon sources, most notably biodiesel waste glycerol. Currently, he is creating of knockout strain of Pseudomonas putida KT2440, lacking the PHA depolymerase gene named phaZ, for his senior thesis project

Erica Hansen Student

Erica is a senior Biochemistry major. She is in her second year of research in the lab, and is currently working on mutating the fabH gene in E. coli to increase the production of PHA. Outside of the lab Erica loves watching SU basketball and is hoping that they make the NCAA tournament this year.

Jingnan Lu Student

Jingnan is currently a junior Biochemistry/Polymer chemistry major. She is working on a secret project for the application of biodegradable polymers that is currently being used for a patent application (not filed so we cannot talk about it yet). Her other project involves chemical modification of unsaturated side chains in poly(3-hydroxyalkenoates) from Pseudomonas putida. Jingnan has a wide variety of interests such as reading forensic science, singing, playing piano, performing in musicals, playing cards, playing GO, making coffee drinks, swimming, collecting foreign coins and stamps, complaining, and making people laugh.

Jackie Mueller Student

Jackie is a Biochemistry major in her last semester at SUNY ESF. She is currently working on protein engineering to generate recombinant forms of Escherichia coli that produce polyhydroxyalkanoate (PHA) biodegradable polyesters. She keeps herself busy outside the lab through dancing tap, jazz, modern, and hip-hop with Orange Pulse, swimming, TAing and tutoring chemistry, working in a student dining hall, cooking, and traveling the world.

Ben Murphy Student

Ben is a Biochemistry and Natural Products major who is interested in optimizing the cost of PHA production using genetically modified bacteria coupled with an alternative carbon source. Hobbies include: Exercise, football, socializing, people watching, meditation, reading on psychology, religion, and sales.

Dan Nicholson Advisor

Dan is a quasi-Graduate Student in Bioprocess Engineering and a part-time Research Support Technician in the Chemistry Department. His research interests are Biofuels, alternative chemical feedstocks, and the re-engineering of biowaste into useful products.

Ryan Tappel Student

Ryan is a Biochemistry graduate student who recently graduated from John Carroll University in Cleveland, Ohio. His present research involves the engineering of various genes involved in biodegradable polymer synthesis into the same construct. He is working on what affects the expression of these genes have in various bacterial cell lines in addition to their biodegradable polymer production.

Outside of lab, he is an avid ultimate frisbee player and enjoys bike riding, running, all other outdoor activities, and anything nerdy.

Alex Mueller Student

Alex is a senior in the Biochemistry program. In lab he is trying to enhance bacterial glycerol metabolism by cloning genes from multiple bacterial strains. These advances could increase the production of polyhydroxyalkanoate (PHA), a biodegradable plastic, in Pseudomonas putida using glycerol as a carbon source. He is also exploring a new non-destructive way to monitor bacterial production of PHA in real time.

When not in the lab he is listening to music (sometimes in lab too), swimming and running (or thinking about it), supervising employees at the dining hall, TA-ing chemistry lab, and just being awesome!

Chengjun Zhu Student

Chengjun is a biology graduate student who works under Prof. Jim Nakas at SUNY-ESF and collaborates with the Nomura Research Group. He is currently optimizing fermentation conditions for the production of polyhydroxyalkanoates in Burkholderia cepacia using the glycerol-byproduct of biodiesel as a carbon source. His research focuses on production of these biodegradable plastics with different kinds of renewable carbon sources and fermentation scale-up to 400-L in the pilot plant at SUNY-ESF.

Outside of the lab, he loves traveling, playing basketball and watching the NBA. He hope that the Houston Rockets go further in the coming NBA playoffs.

Leticia Izquierdo Student

Leticia is currently a junior in Biotechnology major. During the summer of 2008 Leticia contributed to Qin Wang's research experiment by looking at P. putida gene expression under different carbon sources. In the present, she is looking forward to learn new techniques and study PHA biodegradable polymers. Leticia's specialty outside of the lab is dancing Cuban salsa, tango, shopping and being nice to people.