SynBio Routes to Next Generation Green Bio-Surfactants from Sustainable Feedstocks (summary to follow)

考虑到对气候变化和石油使用的主要担忧，工业界有强烈的动力通过发展绿色和可持续的制造实践来减少其整体环境足迹。在这个项目中，我们的目标是开发可持续的生物合成路线和工程细胞工厂，将不饱和脂肪酸原料转化为含呋喃脂肪酸，这是一类重要的天然产物，具有巨大的潜力，可以作为下一代具有有趣功能特性的生物衍生表面活性剂。该项目牢牢地嵌入了化学和生物学的界面，这是BBSRC在“探索新的工作方式”议程中的关键驱动力。它利用关键的生物科学技能，包括蛋白质工程、定向进化和酶表征，并特别利用多学科方法来可持续生产高价值分子，这是工业生物技术部门的主要目标。

In light of major concerns over climate change and oil use, there is a strong drive for industry to reduce its overall environmental footprint through the development of green and sustainable manufacturing practices. In this project, we aim to develop sustainable biosynthetic routes and engineered cell factories for the conversion of unsaturated fatty acid feedstocks to furan-containing fatty acids, an important class of natural products that have great potential to serve as next generation bio-derived surfactants with interesting functional properties.The project is firmly embedded at the interface of chemistry and biology, a key driver for the BBSRC in the 'Exploiting new ways of working' agenda. It draws on key bioscience skills, including protein engineering, directed evolution and enzyme characterization, and specifically exploits a multi-disciplinary approach to the sustainable production of high-value molecules, which is a major objective in the industrial biotechnology sector.