Anastasios Melis is a Greek-American biologist at the University of California, Berkeley who elucidated the possibility of creating hydrogen from algae.
He is currently The Grace Kase and Harry Y. Tsujimoto Distinguished Professor of Plant & Microbial Biology in the institution, elected Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, and Editor-in-Chief of the Planta journal.
[2] The enzyme, hydrogenase, he found was responsible for the reaction, which is normally a temporary emergency survival mechanism used in an oxygen-deprived environment.
[3] The enzyme stops functioning when oxygen is produced, however the deprivation of sulphur ensures continuous hydrogen production.
Scientists since the 1940s have been trying to get the algae to produce hydrogen in significant quantities; he told media his breakthrough was like "striking oil".
[citation needed] Beyond hydrogen, Dr. Melis pioneered the concept and currently leads the field of “Photosynthetic Bioproducts”.
The latter entails a carbon-negative process, whereby natural chemicals, plant essential oils, and biopharmaceutical proteins emanate from photosynthesis, with a single microorganism acting both as photocatalyst and processor, consuming carbon dioxide, and synthesizing and releasing ready to use commodity and specialty products.
Melis is recognized for his multiple ground-breaking contributions in the fields of bioenergy, photosynthetic productivity, bio-products generation, plus the design and application of fusion constructs for high-yield protein synthesis, and pioneering work installing entire exogenous metabolic pathways in microalgae and cyanobacteria.
Owing to his research contributions, Melis has been invited as a speaker and has delivered more than 180 international and national invited lectures and seminars at academic, conference, government, and industry settings in (alphabetically) Brazil, Canada, Europe (multiple countries), India, Israel, Japan, Korea, Turkey, and the US (multiple states).
Other patents cover the biotechnology of terpene hydrocarbons and high-capacity plant essential oils production, plus methods for the scale-up cultivation of photosynthetic microorganisms.