Bergthor Traustason

Bergthor Traustason Doctoral Student at the Doctoral Training Centre E-mail: bergthor.traustason@biology.ox.ac.uk Information Engineering Building, Oxford, OX2 6NJ Department of Biology, Oxford, OX1 3RB

Education

• Doctorate
  • DPhil - Interdiscliplinary Bioscience DTP - University of Oxford (currently studying)
• Master's Degree
  • MPhil Biotechnology - University of Cambridge
• Undergraduate Degree
  • BSc Engineering Physics - University of Iceland

Research

• DPhil Project: Understanding plant colonisation and nitrogen fixation by gammaproteobacteria using metabolic modelling and multi-omic approaches
  • Supervisors: Prof. Philip Poole and Prof. Antonis Papachristodoulou, Department of Biology and Department of Engineering Science, University of Oxford, UK
• DPhil Rotation Project 2: Reconstruction and analysis of a genome-scale metabolic model for Enterobacter ludwigii AA4
  • Supervisors: Prof. Antonis Papachristodoulou and Prof. Philip Poole, Department of Engineering Science and Department of Plant Sciences, University of Oxford, UK
• DPhil Rotation Project 1: Improving molecular farming by protease deletion
  • Supervisor: Prof. Renier van der Hoorn, Department of Plant Sciences, University of Oxford, UK
• MPhil Industrial Project: Identification, quantification, and reduction of aggregation in the production process of bi-specific antibodies
  • AstraZeneca, Cambridge, UK
• MPhil Project: Amino acid requirements of the Chinese hamster ovary cell metabolism during recombinant protein production
  • Supervisor: Dr. Duygu Dikicioglu, Department of Chemical Engineering and Biotechnology, University of Cambridge, UK
• SURF Project: Validation and application of coarse-grained kinetic algorithms for the simulation of nucleic acid reaction pathways
  • Supervisor: Prof. Niles A. Pierce, Division of Biology & Biological Engineering, California Institute of Technology (Caltech), USA
• Icelandic Student Innovation Fund Project: Cultivation of microalgae – A new Icelandic high-tech industry
  • Collaboration between KeyNatura (SagaNatura) and Innovation Center Iceland, Reykjavik Iceland

Publications

• Traustason, B., Cheeks, M. and Dikicioglu, D. Computer-Aided Strategies for Determining the Amino Acid Composition of Medium for Chinese Hamster Ovary Cell-Based Biomanufacturing Platforms.Int. J. Mol. Sci. 2019, 20, 5464

Conferences

• European Nitrogen Fixation Conference 2023 - Naples, Italy, August 2023 (Oral Presentation)

• SynBioBeta 2023 - Berkeley, California, US, May 2023

• Australian Nitrogen Fixation Conference 2022 - Freemantle, Australia, December 2022 (Poster Presentation - Poster Award)

• United Kingdom Nitrogen Network Meeting - Oxford, UK, July 2022 (Oral Presentation)

• GapSummit 2020 - Cambridge, UK, September 2020 (Selected as one of 100 Leaders of Tomorrow in Biotechnology)

Teaching

• Tutor on the undergraduate Biology course (MBiol). University of Oxford (2022-Present)

• Lab Demonstrator for the undergraduate Biology course (MBiol) practicals. University of Oxford (2023)

• Demonstrator in Introduction to Programming module, offered by the Doctoral Training Center. University of Oxford (2021)

Honors & Awards

• Alan H. Gibson Memorial Prize: Awarded for best student poster presentation at ANFC2022.

• Iceland Chamber of Commerce Award: Awarded to Icelandic students, studying abroad, that are most likely to strengthen the Icelandic economy with their skills, knowledge and professional contribution.

• Landsbankinn Scholarship (2021): Scholarship provided to exceptional students from the Bank's Community Fund.

• Clarendon Scholarship (2020): Scholarship awarded to academically outstanding graduate students to take up studies at the University of Oxford.

• The Lincoln College Kingsgate Graduate Scholarship (2020): Scholarship from Lincoln College, for postgraduate studies at the University of Oxford.

• Gates Cambridge Scholarship (2018): Scholarships awarded to outstanding international applicants to pursue postgraduate studies at the University of Cambridge.

• Gudmundur P. Bjarnason fra Syruparti Award (2018): Award given for excellent results in physics at the University of Iceland.

• Islandsbanki Scholarship (2017): Scholarship provided to exceptional students from the Bank's Grant Committee.

• Kiyo and Eiko Tomiyasu Scholarship (2017): Scholarship for a summer research project at the California Institute of Technology (Caltech).

• VI 100 Award (2014): Award for exemplary performance in studies at the Commercial College of Iceland.

Travel Grants

• Microbiology Society Travel Grant 2023, Microbiology Society

• FEMS Travel Grant 2023, Federation of European Microbiological Societies

• Graduate Research Fund Travel Award 2023, Lincoln College, University of Oxford

• SynBioBeta x Global Biotech Revolution Student Grant 2023, Global Biotech Revolution

• The Company of Biologists Travel Grant 2023, Society for Experimental Biology

• Graduate Research Fund Travel Award 2022, Lincoln College, University of Oxford