Platform Cell Factory for the production of lipopolypeptides for the cosmetic industry using synthetic biology

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Currently lipopolypeptides are being used in variety of biotechnology applications. The major bottlenecks in their production are the low yield and high cost of production. Current methods include selection of hyper producers in mixed bacterial cultures. Once isolated they are used to produce the required lipopolypeptides with very little control over the process. The end result is usually a product which contains several isoforms of the same lipopolypeptide which may differ in the amino acid sequence or the number of carbon atoms in the hydrophobic lipid tail. Previous efforts to resolve such issues have been focussed on optimising the process parameters including feed, temperature and time. With the rise of synthetic biology, we now have tools at our disposal to improve metabolic pathways in natural hosts or engineer complete pathways in heterologous hosts. Hexis Lab has identified several small molecules, peptides and lipids as strong candidates for dermatology products with promising skin protective effects, strong antioxidant properties among other pharmacological functions. This project will explore the use of synthetic biology to improve the production of lipopolypeptides.