Rapid Engineering of Cellular Factories

This project will integrate a number of novel synthetic biology technologies in a demonstration project to rapidly engineer a cellular factory. This includes a novel biopump from UCL which will allow the selective import of a hydrophobic substrate into the cell, where a short synthetic pathway will transform it into a higher value aroma chemical, before the final specialty chemical product is exported from the cell. This short synthetic pathway will be rapidly optimized by a combination of a novel gene expression control technology, RiboTite, from University of Manchester and the statistical optimization technology of Synthace. A successful outcome is expected to both yield a process for the production of a high value specialty chemical, as well as a demonstration of a new methodology for the rapid engineering of a bioprocess.