Stephen Mayfield, Director of the San Diego Center for Algae Biotechnology professor of biology at UC San Diego, provides an overview on algae biotechnologies. Over the last ten years, Mayfield’s lab has been the first to show high levels of recombinant protein expression in algae, setting the stage for the use of algae as a platform for therapeutic protein production, including the expression of a human monoclonal antibody. These studies resulted in the founding of Rincon Pharmaceutical, a startup company based on the low cost production of human therapeutics using eukaryotic algae as an expression platform. Mayfield also is a scientific founder and heads the scientific advisory board of Sapphire Energy, the San Diego biofuels startup. More information and online registration is available here.