Design of a yeast-based Novel Food with Yarrowia Lipolytica: An Integrated Approach Combining Nutrition, Synthetic Biology and Sustainability

营养保健品已被公认为医学领域的重要角色，特别是随着人口老龄化的预防保健的增加。在不断增长的市场中，提供低成本和有用的生物活性化合物将越来越重要。此外，发酵将为这些化合物的输送提供一种优雅的解决方案，特别是在发展中国家，甚至在太空中。在我的博士项目中，我的目标是将生物活性营养药品设计到酵母菌中。这种酵母由于其生长强劲和易于操作，在生物技术应用中具有很高的潜力。此外，它的特点是高脂质含量，作为生产高价值化合物的良好前体。首先，我将开发一个分子工具箱：1)使用CRISPR，一种靶向分子剪刀，开发一种快速和大规模的组合方法来激活和抑制基因。2)创建含有高百分比的四种主要大分子的特殊菌株。这不仅会产生易于操作的特殊菌株，而且还可以作为膳食补充剂的基础。因此，这些工具将用于产品的发酵。将通过计算细胞模型选择高价值和高影响的目标化合物，重点是使用基因组规模模型来分析代谢途径和通量。工业合作伙伴，新陈代谢工程初创公司VideraBio，也将提供选择目标的建议以及对市场的洞察。最后，我们将合作扩大发酵规模，以实现市场规模生产。

Nutraceuticals have been recognised as a vital player in medicine, especially with the rise in preventative care in an ever aging population. Supplying low cost and useful bioactive compounds will have increasing importance in the rising market. Furthermore, fermentation will supply an elegant solution to the delivery of such compounds, especially indeveloping countries or even in space.In my PhD project, I aim to engineer bioactive nutraceuticals into the yeast species Yarrowia lipolytica. This species of yeast has a high potential in biotech applications due to its robust growth and ease of manipulation. Moreover, it is characterised by a high lipid content, which act as a good precursor for production of high value compounds. At the outset, I will be developing a molecular toolbox:1) Using CRISPR, a targeted molecular scissors, to develop a rapid and large scale combinatorial approach to activation and repression of genes.2) Create specialist strains, containing high percentages of the four major macromolecules. Not only will this create specialised strains that will be easy to manipulate, but can also serve as building blocks for dietary supplements. Consequently, these tools will be used in the fermentation of the product. High value and high impact target compoundswill be chosen through computational cellular modelling, focussing on using genome scale models to analyse metabolic pathways and fluxes. The industrial partner, VideraBio, a metabolic engineering start-up, will also provide advice on choosing targets as well as give insight into the market. Finally, we will work collaboratively in scale-up fermentation formarket scale production.