Member of the Technical Staff
In the past 10 years, Mary Tran-Gyamfi has worked on many different projects. In studying plants, algae, fungi and yeast, she has been able to understand the complexities and the roles that differing organisms can play in helping to build Sandia’s bioenergy program. She works in the bioconversion of algal carbohydrate and proteins, engineers and screens yeast to produce terpenes, and runs algae testbed experiments in three 1000L ponds to test algae growth under varying conditions.
Education
Bachelor’s Degree: Biological Sciences (1996)
Relevant Prior Positions
Member of Technical Staff, Sandia National Laboratory (2008-Present)
- Member of multiple algae project including carbon capture, algae bloom, and biomass conversion projects
- Collaborates with the USDA to introduce cellulase expression into model plants
Biomedical Scientist, Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory (2000-2008)
- Characterization and annotation of human zinc finger genes
- Member of the Joint Genome Institute’s Mapping Group involved in annotating human Chromosome 5, 16 and 19
- Member of the human genome and microbial sequencing group
Education Volunteer, Ghana, West Africa, United States Peace Corps (1997-1999)
- Taught science and mathematics to high school students
- Developed curriculum and designed educational materials to prepare students for national exams
Selected Publications
- Hamilton, AT, Huntley, S, Tran-Gyamfi, M, Baggott DM, Gordon L, Stubbs L. (2006) Evolutionary expansion and divergence in the ZNF91subfamily of primate-specific zinc finger genes. Genome Res, 16: 584-94
- Huntley, S., Baggott, D.M., Hamilton, A.T., Tran-Gyamfi, M., Yang, S., Kim, J., Gordon, L., Branscomb, E., and Stubbs, L. 2006. A comprehensive catalog of human KRAB-associated zinc finger genes: Insights into the evolutionary history of a large family of transcriptional repressors. Genome Res. 16: 669-677.
- Grimwood, J., Gordon, L.A., Olsen, A., Terry, A., Schmutz, J., Lamerdin, J., Hellsten, U., Goodstein, D., Couronne, O., Tran-Gyamfi, M., et al. 2004. The DNA sequence and biology of human chromosome 19. Nature 428: 529-535.
- Schmutz, J., Martin, J., Terry, A., Couronne, O., Grimwood, J., Lowry, S., Gordon, L.A., Scott, D., Xie, G., Huang, W., Hellsten, U., Tran-Gyamfi ,M., She, X., Prabhakar, S., Aerts, A., et al 2004. The DNA sequence and comparative analysis of human chromosome 5. Nature. 431: 268-74.
- Laurie Gordon, Shan Yang, Tran-Gyamfi M, Dan Baggott, Mari Christensen, Aaron Hamilton, Richard Crooijmans, Martien Groenen, Susan Lucas, Ivan Ovcharenko, and Lisa Stubbs. "Comparative analysis of chicken chromosome 28 provides new clues to the evolutionary fragility of gene-rich vertebrate genomic regions" Genome Res. 17: 1603-13
- Heins RA, Cheng X, Nath S, Deng K, Bowen BP, Chivian DC, Datta S, Friedland GD, D’Haeseleer P, Wu D, Tran-Gyamfi M, et al. 2014 Phylogenomically Guided Identification of Industrially Relevant GH1 β-Glucosidases through DNA Synthesis and Nanostructure-Initiator Mass Spectrometry. ACS Chem Biol. 9:2082-91.
- Bent ZW, Brazel DM, Tran-Gyamfi MB, Hamblin RY, VanderNoot VA, Branda SS. 2013 Use of a capture-based pathogen transcript enrichment strategy for RNA-Seq analysis of the Francisella tularensis LVS transcriptome during infection of murine macrophages. PLoS One. 8:e77834
- Bent ZW, Tran-Gyamfi MB, Langevin SA, Brazel DM, Hamblin RY, Branda SS, Patel KD, Lane TW, VanderNoot VA. 2013 Enriching pathogen transcripts from infected samples: a capture-based approach to enhanced host-pathogen RNA sequencing. Anal Biochem. 438:90-6
- Geng H, Sale KL, Tran-Gyamfi MB, Lane TW, Yu ET. 2016 Longitudinal Analysis of Microbiota in Microalga Nannochloropsis salina Cultures. Microb Ecol. 72(1):14-24
- Geng H, Tran-Gyamfi MB, Lane TW, Sale KL, Yu ET. 2016 Changes in the Structure of the Microbial Community Associated with Nannochloropsis salina following Treatments with Antibiotics and Bioactive Compounds. Front Microbiol. 26;7:1155
- Wu W, Davis RW, Tran-Gyamfi MB, Kuo A, LaButti K, Mihaltcheva S, Hundley H, Chovatia M, Lindquist E, Barry K, Grigoriev IV, Henrissat B, Gladden JM. 2017 Characterization of four endophytic fungi as potential consolidated bioprocessing hosts for conversion of lignocellulose into advanced biofuels. Appl Microbiol Biotechnol. 101(6):2603-2618
- Liu F, Wu W, Tran-Gyamfi MB, Jaryenneh JD, Zhuang X, Davis RW. 2017 Bioconversion of distillers’ grains hydrolysates to advanced biofuels by an Escherichia coli co-culture. Microb Cell Fact. 16(1):192