SBRC NOTTINGHAM: Sustainable Routes to Platform Chemicals

在我们寻找更好的药物以改善老龄化人口的医疗保健，寻找更安全的农用化学品以帮助不断增长的人口的粮食生产，以及寻找用于新技术的先进材料时，全球对基于一组相对简单的碳基分子（包括乙烯，丙烯，丁二烯和苯）的分子的需求持续增加。可悲的是，目前的石油和天然气供应链根本无法继续扩大，以满足这一迅速增长的需求。我们只能通过创新和解决严重的科学挑战来缩小供需之间日益扩大的差距。在BBSRC和其他英国研究委员会（EPSRC/TSB）的资助下，英国政府已经发起了多个多学科合成生物学研究中心（SBRC）的创建，负责加速实现合成生物学产出对企业和社会的好处。合成生物学是“基于生物的部件、新设备和系统的设计和工程，以及对现有自然生物系统的重新设计”。它是一门新兴的科学学科，是通过几个科学核心领域的合并而产生的，主要是生物学，工程学，化学和信息通信技术（ICT）。合成生物学有潜力通过设计生物系统以模块化，可靠和可预测的方式执行新功能来创造新产品和工艺，允许模块在不同的环境中重复使用。诺丁汉SBRC将利用合成生物学来设计微生物，这些微生物可以用更清洁、更环保的方式制造现代社会所需的分子和燃料。我们将利用生物体的能力，“吃”含单碳气体，如一氧化碳（CO），二氧化碳（CO2）和甲烷（CH 4）。当这些气体被注入发酵容器的液体培养基中时，它们被细菌消耗并转化为更需要和有用的分子。幸运的是，我们最初的目标是一氧化碳，这是一种丰富的资源，也是钢铁制造、炼油和化工生产等行业的废物。此外，它可以很容易地以合成气（“合成气”）的形式产生，通过气化（加热）林业和农业残留物，城市垃圾和煤。通过允许使用所有这些可用的低成本非粮食资源，这样的过程既克服了对使用可用于粮食生产的土地资源的担忧。此外，捕获工业排放的大量CO（一旦释放到大气中就注定成为CO2）用于燃料和化学品生产，提供了化石碳排放的净减少。我们还将开发出可以在糖上生长的新生物（葡萄糖和木糖）从生物质的解构中释放出来，这些生物质来自城市垃圾、农业残留物和在不适合粮食生产的土地上种植的特种作物。因此，诺丁汉SBRC的核心科学目标将是指定、设计、测试，验证和开发微生物细胞工厂，以有效生产现代工业社会所必需的化学品。通过有效的沟通和推广，我们将展示新的科学，并展示生物如何使重要的这些分子将取代目前基于化石燃料的原料。我们将改善目前公众对科学界的看法，并展示创新如何带来经济和环境效益。我们对可持续发展充满热情，我们相信我们可以将这一愿景分享给英国科学界的其他人和使用我们产品的公众。

In our search for better medicines to improve healthcare in an ageing population, for safer agrochemicals to aid food production for a growing population, and for advanced materials for new technologies, the global demand for molecules based upon a group of relatively simple carbon based molecules (including ethylene, propylene, butadiene and benzene) continues to increase. Sadly current petroleum and natural gas based supply chains simply can't continue to expand to meet this burgeoning need. We can only close this increasing gap between supply and demand by innovating and solving serious scientific challenges. Funded by the BBSRC and other UK research councils (EPSRC/TSB), the UK Government has initiated the creation of a number of multidisciplinary Synthetic Biology Research Centres (SBRC) charged with the accelerating the realisation of the benefits of the outputs of Synthetic Biology to business and society. Synthetic biology is "the design and engineering of biologically based parts, novel devices and systems as well as the redesign of existing, natural biological systems". It is a newly emerged scientific discipline that has arisen through the merger of several core areas of science, principally biology, engineering, chemistry and Information Communication Technology (ICT). Synthetic Biology has the potential to create new products and processes by engineering biological systems to perform new functions in a modular, reliable and predictable way, allowing modules to be reused in different contexts. The Nottingham SBRC will use Synthetic Biology to engineer microorganisms that can be used to manufacture the molecules and fuels that modern society needs in a cleaner and greener way. We will harness the ability of organisms, to 'eat' single-carbon containing gases, such as carbon monoxide (CO), carbon dioxide (CO2) and methane (CH4). When these gases are injected into the liquid medium of fermentation vessels they are consumed by the bacterium and converted into more desirable and useful molecules. Fortunately CO, our initial target, is an abundant resource, and a waste product of industries such as steel manufacturing, oil refining and chemical production. Moreover, it can be readily generated in the form of Synthesis Gas ('Syngas'), by the gasification (heating) of forestry and agricultural residues, municipal waste and coal. By allowing the use of all these available low cost, non-food resources, such a process both overcomes concerns over the use of land resources that could be used for food production. Furthermore, capturing the large volume of CO (destined to become CO2 once released into the atmosphere) emitted by industry for fuel and chemical production provides a net reduction in fossil carbon emissions. We will also develop new organisms that can grow on the sugar (glucose and xylose) released from the deconstruction of biomass, derived from municipal waste, agricultural residues and specialist crops grown on land that is unsuitable for food production.The core scientific aims of the SBRC at Nottingham, therefore, will be to specify, design, test, validate and exploit microbial cell factories needed for the efficient production of the chemical that are essential for a modern industrial society.Through effective communication and promotion we will showcase new science and demonstrate how organism can make important molecules that will take the place of current fossil fuel based feedstocks. We will improve the current public perception of the scientific community and show how innovation can lead to economic and environmental benefits. We are passionate about sustainability and we believe we can share this vision to the rest of the UKs scientific community and the general public who use our products.