Enrico Marsili has over 17 years of research experience in biofilm and bioelectrochemistry. He has been a PI in the National Centre for Sensor Research (Dublin City University, Ireland) and, Singapore Centre for Environmental Life Sciences Engineering (Nanyang technological University, Singapore). Among other funding, he has been awarded a Marie Curie International Reintegration Grant (2008-2012), industrial funding from Utilities Company (2013-2016) in Singapore. In the following, the five most significant contributions are concisely described.
- Direct electrochemistry of viable microorganisms – Dr Marsili has used for the first time direct electrochemistry to monitor extracellular electron transfer in dissimilatory metal reducing bacteria. The results have been published on PNAS https://www.pnas.org/content/105/10/3968), Applied and Environmental Microbiology (https://aem.asm.org/content/74/23/7329), Biotechnology & Bioengineering (https://doi.org/10.1002/bit.21671), and Electroanalysis (https://doi.org/10.1002/elan.200800007). Applications include control of microbially influenced corrosion, bioenergy production, and biofilm monitoring and control.
- Spectroelectrochemistry of Geobacter sp. - Together with Dr Anand Jain at DCU, Dr Marsili carried out direct spectroelectrochemistry of Geobacter sulfurreducens (https://doi.org/10.1016/j.electacta.2011.02.073), thus shedding light on the bioenergetics of dissimilatory metal reducing microorganisms, which are relevant to biogeochemistry cycles and climate change.
- Biosynthesis of gold nanoparticles in fungi – Together with Dr Sujoy Das at DCU, Dr Marsili investigated the kinetics of gold nanoparticles production in Rhizopus oryzae. The results were published on Green Chemistry (https://pubs.rsc.org/en/content/articlehtml/2012/gc/c2gc16676c) and ACS-Nano (https://pubs.acs.org/doi/10.1021/nn301502s). Nanobiosynthesis show promises for large-scale production of metal nanoparticles and bioconversion processes.
- Bioelectrochemical sensors for VOC monitoring in wastewater – Together with his collaborators at SCELSE-NTU, Singapore, Dr. Carlo Santoro and Dr. Kannan Palanisamy, Dr. Marsili has published a novel whole cell sensor for bioelectrochemical detection of volatile organic compounds (VOC) at ppm concentration in wastewater (Bioelectrochemistry, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.bioelechem.2016.02.003). This work offers a new route to detect organic contaminants in used water.
- Electrochemical monitoring of pathogens in bioelectrochemical systems – Together with his collaborators Prof Kimberly Kline and Dr Ling Ning Lam, Dr Marsili unveil electron transfer mechanism the intestinal pathogen Enterococcus faecalis, (Mbio, https://mbio.asm.org/content/9/2/e00626-17). This work suggests novel strategies for control of E. faecalis-related infections.
Since 2008, Dr Marsili has supervised 5 post-doctoral researchers and 7 PhD students. His supervisee have since then established successful careers in University of Bristol, UK (Dr. Carlo Santoro, Associate Professor), CSIR, India (Dr. Sujoy Das, Senior Scientist), IIT-Delhi (Dr Lucinda Doyle, Assistant Professor), Minzu University, China (Dr Xiaoming Zhang, Associate Professor), and Jiaxing university, China (Dr Kannan Palanisamy, Associate Professor)
Dr. Marsili is Editor for Enzyme and Microbial technology (Elsevier) and Associate Editor for Biotechnology at Frontiers Journals.
