Synthetic Biology

Microbial production workflow
Microbial production workflow

Microbial Production of High-Value Chemicals

The vast majority of commodity and high-value chemicals that society relies on (e.g. medicines, synthetic materials, agrochemicals) are synthesized using petroleum-derived precursors. With the emerging field of synthetic biology, microbial production is now (more than ever) an attractive alternative to generate not only molecules found in nature (“natural product”) but also to expand the chemical diversity of biological systems (1, 2). Among the topics encompassed by synthetic biology, we are particularly interested in access to, and engineering and production of complex natural products from terrestrial and aquatic sources (3).

References Heading link

  1. Kunakom S, Eustáquio AS.* (2019) Natural products and synthetic biology – where we are and where we need to go. mSystems 4: e00113-19.
  2. Romanowski S, Eustáquio AS.* (2020) Synthetic biology for natural product drug production and engineering. Curr Opin Chem Biol 58:137-145.
  3. Kunakom S, Eustáquio AS.* (2020) Heterologous production of lasso peptide capistruin in a Burkholderia host. ACS Synth Biol 9:241-248.