Synthetic metabolic exchange for enhanced sustainability of agriculture

点击翻译按钮获取中文摘要

Agriculture is critical for sustaining human life and our culture but presently it is also a major contributor towards both greenhouse gas emissions and environmental pollution. With the aim of enhancing the sustainability of agriculture, this project will explore opportunities to by-pass the natural exchange of molecules within the agricultural ecosystem and create novel pathways for the transfer of nutrients.To address this challenge, we propose to design, engineer and evaluate synthetic metabolic systems. The student will engage with ongoing entrepreneurial activities and learn to master both computer-based and practical synthetic biology methods. In order to implement synthetic metabolic systems with step-wise increasing complexity, the project first needs to assemble and verify the needed collection of genetic parts. First generation assembled systems seldom work well at first, hence, the next step will involve detailed characterization of the constructed metabolic system, followed by systematic optimization. Finally, the aim is to evaluate the combined synthetic systems in a reconstructed environment, with the aim to understand the principles controlling the outcome.