Synthetic Biology - Pathways

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Representative illustration of a yeast cell with an engineered mevalonate pathway capable of high-level production of FPP, the precursor to artemisinic acid.

Although bacteria have the capacity to transform a number of chemicals, many compounds have novel structures or substituents rarely found in nature. To expand the range of compounds that can be synthesized or degraded by biological systems, we must assemble the appropriate enzymatic reactions to catalyze the transformations, either by introducing the genes for the enzyme-catalyzed reactions into a single bacterium or by assembling a consortium of bacteria containing one or more of the necessary enzymes to undertake the transformation. Analogous to the design of chemical manufacturing facilities, the flow of chemicals through enzymatic reactions within a cell must be optimized within the context of other cellular processes to ensure product composition and to minimize the generation of undesirable products. The primary objective of our work in this area is to develop theoretical and experimental tools that will enable bacterial metabolism to be redirected to synthesize all precursors necessary for the production of a desired, complex compound from an inexpensive carbon source or to degrade or accumulate toxic contaminants into non-toxic forms.

Research Areas