In this section

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{Liu:2018:10.1007/s10295-018-2013-9,
author = {Liu, D and Mannan, AA and Han, Y and Oyarzun, DA and Zhang, F},
doi = {10.1007/s10295-018-2013-9},
journal = {Journal of Industrial Microbiology and Biotechnology},
pages = {535--543},
title = {Dynamic metabolic control: towards precision engineering of metabolism},
url = {http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/s10295-018-2013-9},
volume = {45},
year = {2018}
}

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RIS format (EndNote, RefMan)

TY  - JOUR
AB  - Advances in metabolic engineering have led to the synthesis of a wide variety of valuable chemicals in microorganisms. The key to commercializing these processes is the improvement of titer, productivity, yield, and robustness. Traditional approaches to enhancing production use the “push–pull-block” strategy that modulates enzyme expression under static control. However, strains are often optimized for specific laboratory set-up and are sensitive to environmental fluctuations. Exposure to sub-optimal growth conditions during large-scale fermentation often reduces their production capacity. Moreover, static control of engineered pathways may imbalance cofactors or cause the accumulation of toxic intermediates, which imposes burden on the host and results in decreased production. To overcome these problems, the last decade has witnessed the emergence of a new technology that uses synthetic regulation to control heterologous pathways dynamically, in ways akin to regulatory networks found in nature. Here, we review natural metabolic control strategies and recent developments in how they inspire the engineering of dynamically regulated pathways. We further discuss the challenges of designing and engineering dynamic control and highlight how model-based design can provide a powerful formalism to engineer dynamic control circuits, which together with the tools of synthetic biology, can work to enhance microbial production.
AU  - Liu,D
AU  - Mannan,AA
AU  - Han,Y
AU  - Oyarzun,DA
AU  - Zhang,F
DO  - 10.1007/s10295-018-2013-9
EP  - 543
PY  - 2018///
SN  - 1367-5435
SP  - 535
TI  - Dynamic metabolic control: towards precision engineering of metabolism
T2  - Journal of Industrial Microbiology and Biotechnology
UR  - http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/s10295-018-2013-9
UR  - http://hdl.handle.net/10044/1/56656
VL  - 45
ER  -