Synthetic Biology to Improve Antibiotic Production

Mupirocin is an example of an antibiotic that is the product of a complex synthetic factory found naturally in bacteria. It is currently made industrially using bacteria that have been through successive rounds of selection to find strains that produce more antibiotic during controlled fermentation. It is particularly used against the well known superbug MRSA. The current problems with antibiotic resistant hospital superbugs means that we need more antiobitcs and new antibiotics. Current studies on the bacterial factories that make antibiotics and other products suggest that by changing gene order and improving the signals that switch these genes on it may be possible to increase production. In addition, by combining genes from different pathways one can create new antibiotics or other pharmaceutically active compounds. This project will explore how synthetic biology can be used to build better pathways using our knowledge of how these pathways are programmed.