Biosensors for synthetic biology

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Microbes are incredibly efficient chemical factories. As a result of the rapid advances in molecular biology and genomics it is now possible to engineer microbes to produce a large plethora of chemicals with yields approaching those of ethanol from yeast. With the goal of reducing their environmental footprint, the chemical manufacturing industry is directing increasing levels of resource towards developing more sustainable bio-based processes. For the past 12 years, my NSERC-funded research program has focused on the development of tools and technology to study and engineer biochemical pathway and microbial strains for the production of chemicals and natural products. This research has focused on two main themes: 1) engineering microbes that can simultaneously degrade cellulose and transform glucose to commodity chemicals and 2) engineering microbes for the synthesis of complex natural products. Over the next five years I will focus my research program on the development of transcription factor-based biosensors as tools for optimizing synthetic biochemical pathways in the yeast Saccharomyces cerevisiae. Synthetic transcription factors will be engineered to sense new ligands and used as biosensors to engineer high yielding adipic acid and alkaloid producing strains of yeast. The proposed research will provide new and much needed regulatable promoters for yeast and new methods to engineer them. This research will benefit from the yeast engineering expertise that is unique to the Martin lab. Finally, the proposed research program will provides graduate students with a broad range of skills, preparing them for careers in academia and industry.