Synthetic Biology in Microalgae for Useful Products

Due to their fast growth and relatively low cost of cultivation, microalgae have been tipped to be the production host cells of choice for the future. Microalgae are being characterised to further understand production of native molecules like lipids, which can be converted to fuels or higher value chemicals, or recombinant proteins for therapeutic use in humans. In the Department of Chemical and Biological Engineering, metabolic engineering tools are being integrated with whole genome and proteome analyses to provide clues as to how to improve microalgae as a production host for this purpose. Recently, there has been rapid development in genetic tools to manipulate the genomes of microalgae cells, aiming to improve cell performance and production efficiency, and fall under the umbrella of synthetic biology. This project aims to apply synthetic biology tools to a laboratory strain of microalgae and engineer metabolism for improved production of high value chemicals/proteins.