July 2, 2018

Postdoctoral researcher Cory Knoot prepares a sample of blue-green algae for a neutron scattering experiment on the Bio-SANS instrument at ORNL’s High Flux Isotope Reactor. [Credit: Kelley Smith, Oak Ridge National Laboratory]
“No one has used neutron scattering to test the hypothesized role hydrocarbons in modulating membrane structure in algae,” said Cory Knoot of Washington University in St. Louis. “Understanding why alkanes are important to cyanobacterial health could make it easier to engineer new strains of the algae that can sustainably produce alkanes as biofuels.”
Knoot used the lab’s Biological Small-Angle Neutron Scattering, or Bio-SANS, instrument, which is designed and optimized to analyze the structure, function, and dynamics of complex biological systems.