Stefan Rainer Schmollinger

Stefan Rainer Schmollinger is a Research Assistant Professor at the MSU-DOE Plant Research Laboratory and the Department of Biochemistry & Molecular Biology at Michigan State University. His work focuses on understanding nutrient dynamics in photosynthetic algae, particularly nitrogen and iron utilization, through systems biology and quantitative ionomics.

• Ph.D. in Biology from the University of Kaiserslautern
• Specializes in algal metabolism and ionome analysis under nutrient stress
• Develops CRISPR/Cpf1 tools and uses photo-bioreactor systems for precise environmental modeling

His research explores how algae acclimate to changing nutrient availability, integrating physiological, transcriptomic, and proteomic data at single-cell resolution. Key projects investigate iron's role in chloroplast photosynthesis and nitrogen's impact on carbon fixation, aiming to engineer algae for biotechnological and carbon sequestration applications. The work addresses critical challenges in agricultural productivity and climate change mitigation.