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快速发展，现在有可能设计微生物来生产大量的化学品，其产量接近酵母中乙醇的产量。为了减少对环境的影响，化学制造业正在将越来越多的资源用于开发更可持续的生物工艺。在过去的12年里，我的NSERC资助的研究计划一直专注于工具和技术的开发，以研究和工程生化途径和微生物菌株的化学品和天然产品的生产。这项研究主要集中在两个主题：1）工程微生物，可以同时降解纤维素和葡萄糖转化为商品化学品和2）工程微生物合成复杂的天然产物。在接下来的五年里，我将把我的研究计划集中在基于转录因子的生物传感器的开发上，作为优化酿酒酵母合成生化途径的工具。人工合成的转录因子将被设计成能感应新的配体，并被用作生物传感器来设计高产己二酸和生物碱的酵母菌株。这项研究将为酵母提供新的和急需的可调控启动子以及工程化它们的新方法。这项研究将受益于马丁实验室独有的酵母工程专业知识。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.