Photosynthetic Life: Origin, Evolution, and Future

About Denis MurphyTanai Cardona

Denis Murphy is Emeritus Professor of Biotechnology at the University of South Wales UK with over 40 years' experience in teaching and research in plant and agricultural sciences. Following undergraduate studies in Cell Biology and Biology/Biochemistry at Kings College London and the University of York he studied for a PhD at York in the photosynthesis lab of Prof Rachel Leech. In 1977 he was awarded a Fulbright Fellowship to carry out postdoctoral research on plant lipids in the lab of Professor Paul Stumpf at the University of California Davis followed by a Royal Society visiting fellowship in the photosynthesis lab of Dr Jan Anderson at CSIRO Canberra Australia. From 1990-2000 he was Head of Brassica & Oilseeds Research Department at John Innes Centre. In 2001 he joined the University of Glamorgan as Head of the Biotechnology Unit. In 2012 he established the Genomics and Computation Biology Research Group at University of South Wales and was elected as Fellow of the Biology Society. Tanai Cardona is an Advanced Research Fellow leader of the Molecular Evolution Lab at Imperial College London and holder of a prestigious UKRI Futures Leaders Fellowship. He obtained a BS degree in biology from University of Los Andes in Colombia followed by a doctorate in chemistry from Uppsala University in Sweden. He then joined the Commission for Atomic and Alternative Energies (CEA) in Saclay France as postdoctoral researcher where he was awarded a CEA Marie Skodowska-Curie COFUND Eurotalents fellowship. In 2012 he joined the Department of Life Sciences at Imperial College London where he currently directs a research program investigating the molecular evolution and evolvability of the energy systems of living organisms. His major research focus is on the mechanisms of photosynthesis and structure/function relationships of photosynthetic reaction centres water oxidation complexes chlorophylls and oxygen-using processes.