Engineered microorganisms may serve as factories to convert renewable starting materials, such as sugars and plant-derived biomass, into valuable products including chemicals, fuels, and medicines. Although the feasibility and utility of this approach is now well established, engineering microorganisms and plants to produce novel products through the introduction of specific genes remains technically challenging and resource-intensive. Consequently, these barriers to bringing new biological synthesis platforms to commercial feasibility and efficiency limit the rate at which new technologies create public benefits and economic impacts. Moreover, it is not yet possible to efficiently harness sources of vast biodiversity, such as libraries of genetic information from plants and communities of organisms, because identifying and utilizing genetic "diamonds in the rough" remains too costly and technically intensive to conduct in most laboratories. To meet these needs, this project will develop a technology suite that enables researchers to efficiently assemble, evaluate, and optimize novel biological synthesis systems by harnessing evolutionary mechanisms to both generate and select for functional assemblies of genetic parts. This work includes novel approaches for identifying promising genes from plant genomes, biological sensors that enable engineers to monitor and control biomanufacturing within cells, and computational design tools that will enable the broader research community to apply these capabilities to a broad range of applications.
Broader Impacts: Together, this work will create tools that catalyze the development of sustainable biological manufacturing platforms and enable the production of new medically and industrially useful molecules, thus contributing significantly to the Nation's economy. The project will also provide multi-disciplinary training of students and postdoctoral researchers in a rapidly emerging field.
