Systems Metabolic Engineering

As our concerns on global warming and other environmental problems are increasing, there has been much interest in developing sustainable system for the production of chemicals, fuels, and materials from renewable resources. As microorganisms isolated from nature are often inefficient in performing the desired task, rational metabolic engineering of microorganisms has been employed for the improvement of microbial performance. There has recently been a paradigm shift in biological and biotechnological research on microorganisms as systems biology and synthetic biology are playing increasingly important roles in deciphering and redesigning the cell. In this lecture, I will present the general strategies for systems metabolic engineering, which will be accompanied by several examples including production of chemicals and materials. It is expected that systems metabolic engineering will become an essential technology for making any bioprocess competitive in the future. [Our work has been supported by the Korean Systems Biology Research Grant and Genome to Integrated Bioprocess Development Research Grant from the Korean Ministry of Education, Science and Technology through the National Research Foundation. Further supports by World Class University Program of NRF, Microsoft and LG Chem Chair Professorship are appreciated.