Biosensors for synthetic biology

微生物是非常高效的化学工厂。由于分子生物学和基因组学的迅速发展，现在有可能对微生物进行改造，以生产大量过剩的化学物质，其产量接近酵母生产乙醇的产量。为了减少对环境的影响，化学制造业正将越来越多的资源用于开发更可持续的生物基工艺。在过去的12年里，我的nserc资助的研究项目集中在工具和技术的开发上，研究和设计生化途径和微生物菌株，用于生产化学品和天然产品。这项研究主要集中在两个主题上：1)能够同时降解纤维素和将葡萄糖转化为商品化学品的工程微生物；2)合成复杂天然产物的工程微生物。在接下来的五年里，我将把我的研究项目集中在基于转录因子的生物传感器的开发上，作为优化酵母合成生化途径的工具。合成转录因子将被设计用于检测新的配体，并用作生物传感器来设计高产己二酸和生物碱生产酵母菌株。该研究将为酵母提供新的和急需的可调节启动子和新的工程方法。这项研究将受益于酵母工程专业知识，这是马丁实验室所独有的。最后，拟议的研究计划将为研究生提供广泛的技能，为他们在学术界和工业界的职业生涯做好准备。

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.