Design of a yeast-based Novel Food with Yarrowia Lipolytica: An Integrated Approach Combining Nutrition, Synthetic Biology and Sustainability

Nutraceuticals have been recognised as a vital player in medicine, especially with the rise in preventative care in an ever aging population. Supplying low cost and useful bioactive compounds will have increasing importance in the rising market. Furthermore, fermentation will supply an elegant solution to the delivery of such compounds, especially in
developing countries or even in space.

In my PhD project, I aim to engineer bioactive nutraceuticals into the yeast species Yarrowia lipolytica. This species of yeast has a high potential in biotech applications due to its robust growth and ease of manipulation. Moreover, it is characterised by a high lipid content, which act as a good precursor for production of high value compounds. At the outset, I will be developing a molecular toolbox:

1) Using CRISPR, a targeted molecular scissors, to develop a rapid and large scale combinatorial approach to activation and repression of genes.
2) Create specialist strains, containing high percentages of the four major macromolecules. Not only will this create specialised strains that will be easy to manipulate, but can also serve as building blocks for dietary supplements. Consequently, these tools will be used in the fermentation of the product. High value and high impact target compounds
will be chosen through computational cellular modelling, focussing on using genome scale models to analyse metabolic pathways and fluxes. The industrial partner, VideraBio, a metabolic engineering start-up, will also provide advice on choosing targets as well as give insight into the market. Finally, we will work collaboratively in scale-up fermentation for
market scale production.