Using fatberg waste as a feedstock to produce fragrance compounds in engineered E. coli

低价值材料的“循环利用”是目前生物技术研究的一个主要焦点，通过创建循环经济，有可能显著减少我们社会对化石燃料的依赖。一个正在出现的实现这一目标的新方法是结合使用化学催化剂和工程微生物。这使得非天然废物能够用作生物过程的原料，并极大地扩大了可通过发酵从工程细胞系统生产的工业化合物的范围。这也避免了进化新的酶和能够进行新的自然反应的菌株的需要；现有的绿色化学方法可以直接在体内应用，并与细胞代谢相结合。通过将合成生物学和合成化学相结合，该项目将使用家庭下水道的脂肪废物作为原料，在工程大肠杆菌中生产风味、香料和化妆品化合物。现代合成生物学技术将被用来构建新的生物合成途径(https://www.ed.ac.uk/biology/research/facilities/edinburgh-genome-foundry)，这些途径将在体内与绿色化学催化剂对接。最初的工作将集中在使用从英国下水道中分离出来的真实工业样本之前使用模型原料混合物。总体而言，该项目提供了一个独特的机会，可以领导开发一种新的生物工艺，从低价值的下水道废水中产生高价值的化合物，以推动英国的循环生物经济。这个高度多学科的项目将设在爱丁堡大学华莱士实验室(http://wallacelab.bio.ed.ac.uk)，)，这是一个友好和包容的研究小组，总部设在生物科学学院的数量生物学、生物化学和生物技术研究所(IQB3)和合成与系统生物学中心(SynthSys，https://www.ed.ac.uk/biology/synthsys).该实验室为博士生提供了一个独特的培训环境，以获得广泛的合成生物学和合成化学技术方面的经验-包括代谢途径设计、DNA组装、微生物学和蛋白质生物化学；除了有机合成、化学生物学和通过高效液相、气相色谱、核磁共振和LC-MS分析微生物代谢物。这是一个与Argent Energy合作的4年制全额资助的IBioIC/BBSRC学生项目，除了在整个项目中与行业研究科学家进行定期互动外，还将包括3/6个月的工业实习。该学生将加入参加IBioIC CTP(https://www.ibioicctp.com))的学生行列，并将从该计划提供的广泛的额外培训机会中受益。Http://wallacelab.bio.ed.ac.uk

The 'upcycling' of low-value material is a major focus of current research in biotechnology and has the potential to significantly reduce our society's reliance on fossil fuels by creating a circular economy.An emerging new approach to achieving this goal is the combined use of chemical catalysts and engineered microorganisms. This enables the use of 'non-natural' waste as a feedstock for biological processes, and dramatically expands the range of industrial compounds that can be produced from engineered cellular systems via fermentation. This also avoids the need to evolve new enzymes and strains capable of performing new-to-nature reactions; existing green chemical methods can instead be directly applied in vivo and interfaced with cellular metabolism.By merging synthetic biology and synthetic chemistry, this project will use fatberg waste from domestic sewers as a feedstock to produce flavour, fragrance and cosmetic compounds in engineered E. coli. Modern synthetic biology techniques will be used to construct new biosynthetic pathways (https://www.ed.ac.uk/biology/research/facilities/edinburgh-genome-foundry) and these will be interfaced with green chemical catalysts in vivo. Initial work will focus on the use of model feedstock mixtures before using real industry samples isolated from UK sewers.Overall, this project offers a unique opportunity to lead the development of a novel bioprocess to generate high value compounds from low value sewer waste to fuel the circular bioeconomy in the UK. This highly multidisciplinary project will be based in the Wallace Lab at the University of Edinburgh (http://wallacelab.bio.ed.ac.uk), a friendly and inclusive research team based at the Institute of Quantitative Biology, Biochemistry and Biotechnology (IQB3) in the School of Biological Sciences and the Centre for Synthetic and Systems Biology (SynthSys, https://www.ed.ac.uk/biology/synthsys). The lab offers a unique training environment for doctoral students to gain experience in a broad range of synthetic biology and synthetic chemistry techniques - including metabolic pathway design, DNA assembly, microbiology and protein biochemistry; in addition to organic synthesis, chemical biology and the analysis of microbial metabolites by HPLC, GC, NMR and LC-MS.This is a 4 year fully-funded IBioIC/BBSRC studentship in collaboration with Argent Energy and will involve a 3-/6-month industrial placement in addition to regular interactions with industry research scientists throughout the project. The student will join a cohort of students enrolled on the IBioIC CTP (https://www.ibioicctp.com) and will benefit from the wide range of additional training opportunities this provides. http://wallacelab.bio.ed.ac.uk