The mission of the New Pathway Development Department is to select, develop, and demonstrate efficient conversion strategies to transform biomass-derived sugars and aromatics into infrastructure- and engine-compatible biofuels, as well as into drop-in and novel bioproducts. To develop biosynthetic and hybrid biological-chemical (semisynthetic) pathways to a variety of prioritized biofuels and bioproducts JBEI scientists are 1) developing a retrobiosynthesis pathway predictor that will enable prioritized selection of biological pathways and enzymes to produce a desired target; 2) developing high-throughput automated platforms to build and test a large number of novel pathways; 3) developing data-driven and mechanistic models to systematically guide metabolic engineering; and 4) developing biosynthetic pathways to the desired targets or to intermediates that can be converted using chemistry to expand the range of possible biofuel and bioproduct targets.
Projects
- Development of a retrobiosynthesis pathway predictor that will enable prioritized selection of biological pathways, enzymes, and chemical transformations to produce a desired target
- Development of synthetic biology pathways to the desired biofuel or bioproduct (or intermediates) using modular pathways such as the polyketide synthases
- Development of mechanistic and data-driven models for optimizing flux through engineering metabolic pathways
Featured Media
Jay Keasling Receives Distinguished Scientist Fellow Award
Machine Learning Takes on Synthetic Biology: Algorithms Can Bioengineer Cells for You
Metabolic Engineering of Lipids Improves the Respiratory Function of Biofuels and Bioproducts Hosts
Faster, Cheaper, Better: A New Way to Synthesize DNA
Turning Sugar into High Performance Fuel: CNN’s The Next List Profiles Jay Keasling
Featured Publications
- “Microbial production of advanced biofuels”, Nature Reviews Microbiology (2021)
- “A machine learning Automated Recommendation Tool for synthetic biology”, Nature Communications (2020)
- “Chemoinformatic-guided engineering of polyketide synthases”, JACS (2020)
- “Short-chain ketone production by engineered polyketide synthases in Streptomyces albus“, Nature Communications (2018)
- “Viscous control of cellular respiration by membrane lipid composition”, Science, (2018)
- “De novo DNA synthesis using polymerase-nucleotide conjugates”, Nature Biotechnology (2018)
- “ClusterCAD: a computational platform for type I modular polyketide synthase design”, Nucleic Acids Research (2017)
Featured Intellectual Property
- Synthesis of Biofuels and Chemicals via Triketide Lactones, Engineered Through Polyketide Synthases
- ClusterCAD: Computational Platform for Design of Chimeric Polyketide Synthase (PKS) enzymes
- Biosynthetically Produced Pinene for Jet Fuel or Chemical Applications
- Methods for Increasing Production of 3-methyl-2-Butenol Using Fusion Proteins
- Biology experiment designs