Tracking anaerobic microbial community responses using a synthetic biology approach

Anaerobic digestion (AD) supports the biogenic production of methane from organic waste by utilising the catabolic activities of complex microbial communities. This technology is used at scale to recover precious resources from waste as biogas and nitrogen-rich digestate. Biogas can be used as a carbon neutral drop-in replacement for fossil fuels, while digestate can be used as a low-energy alternative to chemical fertiliser. Understanding how particular environmental, chemical and biological parameters result in specific microbiome responses is important for a better understanding of the microbial ecology that underlies the AD process.
This project will use synthetic biology approaches to produce low-cost, quantitative in-situ tools that can chart and explore changes in metabolite and toxin concentrations and report microbial community responses in close to real-time. By introducing the expression of volatile reporter molecules under the control of sensing pathways into indigenous anaerobes we aim to generate signals that can be measured in the gas phase. This technology would reduce the challenges associated with fouling of process monitoring instruments, has the potential to provide measurements in response to lower concentrations of specific molecules and could be useful in manipulating microbial responses to their environment.