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Research

Biological systems - including the simplest cells - exhibit a broad range of functions to thrive in their environment. Research in the Imperial College Centre for Synthetic Biology is focused on the possibility of engineering the underlying biochemical processes to solve many of the challenges facing society, from healthcare to sustainable energy. In particular, we model, analyse, design and build biological and biochemical systems in living cells and/or in cell extracts, both exploring and enhancing the engineering potential of biology.

As part of our research we develop novel methods to accelerate the celebrated Design-Build-Test-Learn synthetic biology cycle. As such research in the Centre for Synthetic Biology highly multi- and interdisciplinary covering computational modelling and machine learning approaches; automated platform development and genetic circuit engineering ; multi-cellular and multi-organismal interactions, including gene drive and genome engineering; metabolic engineering; in vitro/cell-free synthetic biology; engineered phages and directed evolution; and biomimetics, biomaterials and biological engineering.

Publications

Citation

BibTex format

@article{Jacobsen:2020:10.3389/fbioe.2020.00029,
author = {Jacobsen, IH and Ledesma-Amaro, R and Martinez, JL},
doi = {10.3389/fbioe.2020.00029},
journal = {Frontiers in Bioengineering and Biotechnology},
title = {Recombinant β-carotene production by yarrowia lipolytica - assessing the potential of micro-scale fermentation analysis in cell factory design and bioreaction optimization},
url = {http://dx.doi.org/10.3389/fbioe.2020.00029},
volume = {8},
year = {2020}
}

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RIS format (EndNote, RefMan)

TY  - JOUR
AB  - The production of β-carotene has become increasingly interesting within the biotechnological industry due to a rising demand for safer and more natural colorants, nutritional supplements, and antioxidants. A recent study has described the potential of Yarrowia lipolytica as a β-carotene-producing cell factory, reporting the highest titer of recombinant β-carotene produced to date. Finding the best conditions to maximize production and scaling up the process to full scale, a costly and time-consuming process, it is often a bottleneck in biotechnology. In this work, we explored the benefits of using micro-fermentation equipment to significantly reduce the time spent on design and optimization of bioreaction conditions, especially in the early stages of process development. In this proof-of-concept study, a β-carotene producing Y. lipolytica strain was tested in micro-fermentations partly to assess the robustness of the cell factory design and partly to perform media optimization. The medium optimization led us to an improvement of up to 50% in the yield of β-carotene production in the best of the conditions. Overall, the micro-fermentation system had a high degree of reliability in all tests.
AU  - Jacobsen,IH
AU  - Ledesma-Amaro,R
AU  - Martinez,JL
DO  - 10.3389/fbioe.2020.00029
PY  - 2020///
SN  - 2296-4185
TI  - Recombinant β-carotene production by yarrowia lipolytica - assessing the potential of micro-scale fermentation analysis in cell factory design and bioreaction optimization
T2  - Frontiers in Bioengineering and Biotechnology
UR  - http://dx.doi.org/10.3389/fbioe.2020.00029
UR  - https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/32117917
UR  - http://hdl.handle.net/10044/1/77275
VL  - 8
ER  -

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