Collaborative Research: Exploiting the Syntegron Technology Platform for Assembly and 0ptimisation of Complex Genetic Ensembles

工程微生物可以作为工厂，将糖和植物来源的生物质等可再生原料转化为有价值的产品，包括化学品、燃料和药品。尽管这种方法的可行性和实用性现在已经确立，但通过引入特定基因来设计微生物和植物以产生新产品在技术上仍然具有挑战性，并且需要大量资源。因此，将新的生物合成平台推向商业可行性和效率的这些障碍限制了新技术创造公共利益和经济影响的速度。此外，还不可能有效地利用大量生物多样性的来源，例如来自植物和生物群落的遗传信息库，因为识别和利用遗传“未加工钻石”的成本和技术密集度仍然太高，无法在大多数实验室进行。为了满足这些需求，该项目将开发一套技术，使研究人员能够有效地组装、评估和优化新的生物合成系统，方法是利用进化机制来生成和选择基因部分的功能组装。这项工作包括从植物基因组中识别有前途的基因的新方法，使工程师能够监测和控制细胞内生物制造的生物传感器，以及使更广泛的研究团体能够将这些能力应用于广泛应用的计算设计工具。更广泛的影响：这项工作将共同创造工具，促进可持续生物制造平台的发展，并使新的医学和工业有用分子的生产成为可能，从而为国家经济做出重大贡献。该项目还将在一个迅速崛起的领域为学生和博士后研究人员提供多学科培训。

Engineered microorganisms may serve as factories to convert renewable starting materials, such as sugars and plant-derived biomass, into valuable products including chemicals, fuels, and medicines. Although the feasibility and utility of this approach is now well established, engineering microorganisms and plants to produce novel products through the introduction of specific genes remains technically challenging and resource-intensive. Consequently, these barriers to bringing new biological synthesis platforms to commercial feasibility and efficiency limit the rate at which new technologies create public benefits and economic impacts. Moreover, it is not yet possible to efficiently harness sources of vast biodiversity, such as libraries of genetic information from plants and communities of organisms, because identifying and utilizing genetic "diamonds in the rough" remains too costly and technically intensive to conduct in most laboratories. To meet these needs, this project will develop a technology suite that enables researchers to efficiently assemble, evaluate, and optimize novel biological synthesis systems by harnessing evolutionary mechanisms to both generate and select for functional assemblies of genetic parts. This work includes novel approaches for identifying promising genes from plant genomes, biological sensors that enable engineers to monitor and control biomanufacturing within cells, and computational design tools that will enable the broader research community to apply these capabilities to a broad range of applications. Broader Impacts: Together, this work will create tools that catalyze the development of sustainable biological manufacturing platforms and enable the production of new medically and industrially useful molecules, thus contributing significantly to the Nation's economy. The project will also provide multi-disciplinary training of students and postdoctoral researchers in a rapidly emerging field.