CAREER: Design, Construction, and Validation of Modular Chassis Cells for Efficient Combinatorial Biosynthesis of Chemicals

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The envisioned rapid development of novel, biology-derived platforms for the production of industrial chemicals from renewable feedstocks requires the development of innovative new tools. The overarching goal of this project is to incorporate modular molecular design principles into microbial manufacturing platforms to enable the highly efficient synthesis of targeted chemicals from easily interchangeable genetic modules. The success of the project will advance frontiers of synthetic biology and metabolic engineering, advance biomanufacturing, train a large cohort of undergraduate and graduate students as innovators and leaders as well as expose K-12 students to STEM disciplines through hands-on experiences.This project will address three fundamental questions: What is a modular cell? How can microbial manufacturing platforms be constructed from a minimal cell using exchangeable modules for the highly efficient combinatorial biosynthesis of novel chemicals? What classes of modules are particularly suitable to couple with the proposed modular cell? First, MOCELL computational tools will be developed to aid the design and implementation of several microbial biosynthetic platforms. Second, these MODCELL platforms will be tested after introduction of exchangeable modules that encode enzymes for specific fermentative pathways. Third, The MODCELL design will be experimentally validated for efficient combinatorial biosynthesis of targeted esters.