Sustainable production of natural products and biochemicals from microalgae

在过去十年中，由于环境问题和消费者对可持续和可再生产品的强烈需求，利用可再生资源生产的化学品和燃料大大增加。生物基工业已经成熟，用于生化生产的非传统生物被越来越多地采用。微藻是一种很有前途的可再生化学物质来源。通过设计光合生物的代谢过程，我们可以利用生物系统从二氧化碳和阳光中制造化学物质，减少化学生产对环境的影响。这项工作的最终目标是将一种绿色微藻开发成一个从阳光和二氧化碳中生产生物基化学品的平台。微藻在固定二氧化碳方面比陆地植物更有效，并且具有生产生物塑料、生物燃料和其他高价值工业化学品的化学前体的潜力，然而，这些技术的商业化目前受到两个挑战的阻碍：缺乏基因修饰工具和下游回收过程的高成本。

Over the last decade, the production of chemicals and fuels from renewable resources has increased substantially due to environmental concerns and strong consumer demand for sustainable and renewable products. The bio-based industry has matured and non-traditional organisms for biochemical production are being increasingly adopted. One promising source of renewable chemicals are microalgae. By engineering the metabolic processes of photosynthetic organisms we can use biological systems to create chemicals from CO2 and sunlight and reduce the environmental impact of chemical production. The ultimate goal of this work is to develop a species of green microalgae into a platform for the production of bio-based chemicals from sunlight and CO2. Microalgae are more efficient at fixing CO2 than land plants and have the potential to produce chemical precursors for bioplastics, biofuels, and other high value industrial chemicals, however, the commercialization of these technologies is currently impeded by two challenges: the lack of genetic modification tools and the high cost of the downstream recovery processes. Recent breakthroughs in the genetic modification of several microalgae species has poised this field for major advancements in the coming years. This research program will begin with the development of genetic engineering tools for the microalgae Chlorella vulgaris. These tools will be used to develop strains of C. vulgaris that overproduce astaxanthin, a strong anti-oxidant used in the aquaculture industry and eaten as a food supplement. This will be later extended to use C. vulgaris as a production platform for other isoprenoids of interest like natural pesticides and chemotherapy agents. To address the challenges of creating a low-cost separation process for microalgae biomass, Dr. Ward's group will develop ionic liquid (IL) catalysts capable of the direct conversion of microalgae lipids into biodiesel, and which facilitate the disruption and separation of microalgae carbohydrates and proteins. ILs are often called green solvents because many are not volatile and do not produce air pollution as a result of their use. We will develop ILs that can direct convert lipids produced by microalgae into biodiesel, as well as recovery the large amount of starch they accumulate. With the increasing need for non-edible starch to supply the growing biofuels and thermoplastics industries, starch produced from microalgae grown photosynthetically is likely to play an increasingly important role to these industries. This genetic, metabolic, and bioprocess engineering research program will train HQP in the interdisciplinary skill set needed to be successful in the growing Canadian bioeconomy and help establish Canada as a world leader in bio-based chemical production.