Insights & Outcomes: A carbon removal contest and a deeper look into skin

This month, we marvel at cutting-edge carbon sequestration research and look at a new study that deepens our understanding of disfiguring skin diseases. We also take a moment to honor a batch of fellowship-winning graduate students and an undergraduate with a flair for making science videos.

As always, you can find more science and medicine research news on Yale News’ Science & Technology and Health & Medicine pages.

Ready, set… remove carbon!

Three companies with ties to the Yale Center for Natural Carbon Capture have been named as finalists in a global competition to develop the most promising carbon dioxide (CO₂) removal technology.

Next year, XPrize Carbon Removal will award $50 million to a grand prize winner in the competition, plus another $30 million that will be distributed among as many as three runners up. The competition is funded by Elon Musk and the Musk Foundation.

More than 1,300 companies from 88 countries entered the competition when it began three years ago. There are 20 finalists remaining — and they include three Yale-related companies:

• Ebb Carbon, a company that created a system for storing atmospheric carbon dioxide in seawater while reducing ocean acidity. The company was co-founded by Matthew Eisaman, a professor of Earth and planetary sciences in the Faculty of Arts and Sciences (FAS).
• Lithos Carbon, a company that accelerates the Earth's natural carbon cycle by deploying enhanced rock weathering (ERW) in agriculture to permanently remove CO₂ from the air and improve crop yields and soil health for farmers. Lithos uses organic-grade volcanic basalt dust and state-of-the-art science to measure CO₂ removal. Noah Planavsky, an associate professor of Earth and planetary sciences in FAS, is a co-founder of the company.
• Mati Carbon, a company that removes carbon from the atmosphere through the use of basalt-based enhanced rock weathering in rice paddy farms, while adding key nutrients to the soil. Planavsky co-invented Mati Carbon’s isotope dilution technology and is a scientific advisor for the company.

The finalists have been tasked with removing 1,000 net metric tons of CO₂ during the final year of the competition. Contest judges also will consider the finalists’ potential for removing carbon on a megaton scale in the years ahead — and the gigatonne scale (a gigatonne is one billion metric tons) by 2050.

The competition ends next April.

A deeper layer of skin disease data

Researchers at Yale and in Vietnam have conducted the most thorough analysis to date describing how a group of disfiguring skin diseases affects the skin microbiome in individuals of Southeast Asian ethnicity.

The findings, published in the journal Human Genomics, provide a deeper understanding of the microbiological, immunological, and molecular properties of congenital ichthyosis (CI) and may offer critical information to improve management of the diseases, the researchers said.

CI is characterized by dry, scaly patches of skin that cover the body. There is currently no treatment for ichthyosis approved by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration.

There has also been no data differentiating the way CI affects patients of different ethnicities.

“This research can be seen as a beginning,” said Christopher Bunick, associate professor of dermatology at Yale School of Medicine and co-corresponding author of a new study. Bunick and Yale have been instrumental participants in clinical trials for a possible therapy for CI.

For the new study, Bunick and his colleagues conducted skin meta-genomics (whole exome sequencing) on a group of 51 people — 36 CI patients and 15 patients with no family history of CI — over multiple years.

The researchers documented phenotypic features of seven CI subtypes and established a connection between skin barrier proteins and elevated rates of infection or sepsis in the study group. They also determined that Southeast Asian CI patients have impaired response to wound healing, which can be mitigated using oral antibiotics.

Chi-Bao Bui of Vietnam National University is co-corresponding author of the study, with Bunick. Co-lead authors are Minh Ho of Yale, Huynh-Nga Nguyen of Dalat University in Vietnam, and Minh Van Hoang of the Vietnam Vascular Anomalies Center.

Follow the fellowships

Yale students, both graduate students and undergraduates, figured prominently in the recent announcement of National Science Foundation (NSF) Graduate Research Fellowship Program awards.

Fellowships provide the student with a three-year annual stipend of $37,000 along with a $16,000 cost of education allowance for tuition and fees (paid to the institution), as well as access to opportunities for professional development available to NSF-supported graduate students.

The purpose of the program is to help ensure the quality, vitality, and diversity of the scientific and engineering workforce of the United States. The program recognizes and supports outstanding graduate students in NSF-supported science, technology, engineering, and mathematics disciplines who are pursuing research-based master’s and doctoral degrees at accredited U.S. institutions.

Yale students receiving fellowships were: Karina Ascunce Gonzalez, Marisa Ann Barilla, Mackenzie Bender, Katherine Sophia Benitez, Lucas F. Bertucci, RuthMabel Boytz, Hannah B. Castillo, William Robert Cerny, John Joonhee Cho, Anne Frances Durfee, Gloria W. Feng, Stacey Helen Gerasimov, Elizabeth Giman, Joshua T. Grace, Aaron S. Greenberg, Rosalie Grijalva, Emma L. Keeler, Cara T. Ly, Miranda Margulis-Ohnuma, Frances E. Moore, Andrew Owen Neely, Dana E. Polomski, Rose Powers, Neera Hannah Raychaudhuri, Noah Reed, Carmelita Joy Ro-Mendez, Lester G. Rodriguez Santos, Nimran Shergill, Alexander Simon, Anthony Michael Smaldone, Carlton John Smith, Eddy Tzintzun-Tapia, Anavi Uppal, Raymond G. Vaca, Samuel Christian Venturella, and Lydia Watt.

A scholarship that was in the ‘Cards’

AJ LaConte, an astrophysics major who recently finished their first year at Yale College, has won full tuition from the makers of a popular party card game.

LaConte won the scholarship after submitting a science explainer video to Cards Against Humanity’s full-tuition Science Ambassador Scholarship program for undergraduate women and non-binary students in science, technology, engineering, and math. Cards Against Humanity created the program with proceeds from their “Science Pack,” and “Climate Catastrophe Pack,” which are 30-card expansion packs. The scholarship trust has raised more than $1.4 million since its creation in 2015.

LaConte submitted a three-minute video on Doppler shifts. An advisory board of 45 science and tech professionals selected LaConte’s video as winner.

“What drew me to AJ’s application was their clear commitment to teaching and mentoring across a broad spectrum of subjects,” said Diana S.M. Buist, ’95 M.P.H., a co-chair of the scholarship program’s advisory board.

LaConte said they were “overwhelmed with gratitude” for the educational opportunities the scholarship will provide. “I’ve had so much fun making videos so far, and I can’t wait to come up with more fun topics and develop a full collection of them,” they said. “I hope that this platform will allow me to be a role model for other trans and nonbinary STEM students, as I know how important having those figures in my life has been in helping me feel confident in myself and my pursuits.”

Research Redux:

Astronomers find a tiny star system with a tantalizing story to tell
Key to harnessing light waves? First do the math
AI-based biomarker for aortic stenosis found by Yale researchers
The search is on for signs of first stars in the universe
Tracking the cellular and genetic roots of neuropsychiatric disease