Engineering circular resource flows to transform mine waste using biology

Speaker

Dr Denys Villa Gomez

Abstract

What if mine waste became the starting point for new resource flows rather than the endpoint of extraction? This seminar explores how biology can help turn that possibility into practical opportunities for resource recovery, emissions reduction and rehabilitation. Examples include extremotolerant fungi that mobilise critical metals from red mud, and metal-binding proteins and peptides that selectively capture valuable metals from complex solutions. It will be shown how biology can link mine-water treatment to elemental sulfur recovery. Finally, the seminar will examine how biological processes can transform greenhouse gas emissions into valuable resources and support mine rehabilitation.
The presentation will connect these applications through microbiome discovery, omics, high-throughput screening and bioprocess engineering, showing how we identify biological capabilities and develop them into feedstock-specific solutions. Synthetic biology adds an engineering dimension: moving beyond discovering natural capabilities towards tailoring microorganisms and metal-binding molecules to improve process performance and selectivity. This combination of biological discovery and targeted engineering underpins SynBiomining, our developing framework for translating biological capabilities into mining applications.
The key takeaway is that biology offers more than an alternative treatment method, it offers a toolkit for rethinking how resources flow through mining, with opportunities to recover value while reducing environmental burdens.

Speaker Bio

Dr Denys Villa Gomez is a Senior Lecturer in the School of Civil Engineering and jointly appointed with the Australian Institute for Bioengineering and Nanotechnology (AIBN) at The University of Queensland. She is a Group Leader at the UQ Biosustainability Hub and UQ Node Leader for the ARC Training Centre in Critical Resources for the Future.
Her research combines microbial processes, synthetic biology and bioprocess engineering to recover critical minerals from waste, transform greenhouse gases into valuable resources and support mine rehabilitation. Through government and industry collaborations, she advances circular economy and decarbonisation goals. She has published over 46 journal articles, attracted over 700 citations and secured more than $2.5 million in research funding.