About This Project

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Ask the Scientists

What is the context of this research?

Cells have undergone millions of years to evolution to perform complex biochemical transformations.

Therefore, biomanufacturing offers an opportunity to decelerate climate crisis by producing chemicals and fuels at low carbon cost.

Protein engineering and synthetic biology can further optimize the biochemical machinery for the more sustainable production of valuable chemicals in cells.

What is the significance of this project?

Isobutanol, a drop-in fuel, is naturally synthesized by S. cerevisiae, an established industrial workhorse for bioproduction. However, current bioproduction strategies are at least an order of magnitude below the maximum theoretical limits.

The incentive to increase both the rate of production and yield is urgent. The number of production units to be installed globally falls exponentially with an increase in rate of production. The area of land required to produce enough isobutanol drops linearly with increase in yield of Isobutanol from Glucose (g/g).

What are the goals of the project?

Achieve an isobutanol production rate of at least 0.5 g L-1 hr-1 (a tenfold increase compared to current best of 0.05 g L-1 hr-1). This would lead to a 10 fold reduction in the number of industrial plants needed to match global energy demand.

Achieve a yield of at least 100 mg isobutanol per g glucose (current best 60 mg/g glucose). This would lead to a 50% reduction in the area of land needed to cultivate lignocellulosic biomass for biofuels production.

Develop a programmable pipeline (both computational and experimental) to engineer multicellular factories for producing a wide range of fine chemicals and fuels.