He/Him
The primary goal of my thesis is to make E. coli electroactive. E. coli, being one of the most genetically tractable microbes, allows us to learn by building. Thus, I build metabolic pathways and electron transport chains inspired by naturally occurring electroactive microbes like Shewanella and Geobacter. This work sets a premise to establish a set of metabolic and respiratory design rules critical for building applications on biosensing, electrofermentation, and bioremediation.
Favorite Scientists: Herbert W. Boyer, Walter Bishop (Fictional), Hans Krebs
Education: Ph.D. student, Systems, Synthetic and Physical Biology Program
M.Tech., Biotechnology and Biochemical Engineering, IIT, Kharagpur, India, 2017
B.Tech., Biotechnology and Biochemical Engineering, IIT, Kharagpur, India, 2017
bkundu at rice dot edu
C. Ajo-Franklin Group Publications
“Characterizing Mediated Extracellular Electron Transfer in Lactic Acid Bacteria with a Three-electrode, Two-chamber Bioelectrochemical System.” R. A. C. Alba, S. Li, B. B. Kundu, C. M. Ajo-Franklin, R. Cai. Journal of Visualized Experiments (2024).
“Extracellular electron uptake from a cathode by the lactic acid bacterium Lactiplantibacillus plantarum,” S. Tejedor-Sanz, S. Li, B. Kundu, C. M. Ajo-Franklin, Frontiers in Microbiology (2023)
“Engineering Wired Life,” L. J. Bird, Biki B. Kundu, Tanya Tschirhart, Anna D. Corts, Lin Su, J. A. Gralnick, C. M. Ajo-Franklin, and S. M. Glaven*, ACS Synthetic Biology, 10, 2808–2823 (2021).