(228bl) Engineering of Microbial Cell Factories for Biobased Chemicals Production | AIChE

(228bl) Engineering of Microbial Cell Factories for Biobased Chemicals Production

Authors 

Ang, E. L. - Presenter, Agency for Science, Technology and Research
Liang, Y., Agency for Science, Technology and Research
Shi, S., Agency for Science, Technology and Research
Zhang, H., Agency for Science Technology and Research
Zhang, M. M., Agency for Science, Technology and Research
Liu, Z., Agency for Science, Technology and Research
Si, T., University of Illinois at Urbana Champaign
Zhang, Y., Agency for Science, Technology and Research
Zhao, H., University of Illinois-Urbana
The production of chemicals through biological systems offer promising solutions to global challenges presented by a carbon constrained future and an increasing global population. In the past decade, rapid advances in DNA sequencing and synthesis and genome editing technologies have accelerated our ability to program biological systems for the production bio-based chemicals from renewable feedstocks. However, challenges such as feedstock utilization, microbial cell factory engineering and stabilization of the production strainâ??s genetics, still remain.

The Metabolic Engineering Research Laboratory in Singapore is focused on addressing these challenges through the design and engineering of recombinant microorganisms. In this presentation, I will highlight our accomplishments including: (a) deconstruction of cellulose through engineering a Saccharomyces cerevisiae pentafunctional minicellulosome system with enhanced cellulose degradation capabilities, which can also be applied as a cellulase engineering platform, (b) metabolic engineering of microbial cell factories for the production of biochemicals, such as n-butanol and adipic acid, and (c) development of an efficient technological platform for the integration of large genetic pathways and circuits (up to 24 kb) into the yeast genomes to create genetically stable production hosts.