Chen Laboratory

The lab focuses on photosynthesis, the most important biochemical process on Earth. Research is conducted using cyanobacteria and purple bacteria as the model organisms, with a combination of methods from biochemistry, structural biology, genetic engineering, metabolic engineering and synthetic biology, guided by both top-down and bottom-up strategies. The main directions include: 1) analyse the structure and catalytic mechanism of enzymes involved in the biosynthesis of photosynthetic pigments (chlorophylls); 2) study the molecular mechanism of photosystem assembly through engineering and heterologous reconstruction; 3) investigate the minimal genetic information required for photosynthesis and progressively establish photosynthesis in heterotrophs (prokaryote E. coli and eukaryote yeast).