Synthetic Biology

Irrespective of the tremendous advances of the life sciences, biotechnology is currently still basically a discovery science. In order to truly deliver on the promises - such as unlimited access to biofuels, personalized medicine, a renewed chemical industry – biotechnology must arguably become a true engineering discipline. Synthetic biology is concerned with this transition. In our group, we apply a synthetic biology approach to design artificial in vitro reaction networks.

Goals

On the conceptual side, we want to implement the fundamentals of an engineering approach to biocatalyst design. This involves in particular:
- the development of re-usable, well documented biological parts (such as genes for regulatory genes and enzymes) and devices (higher functional elements, such as DNA circuits or pathways)
- the implementation of orthogonality in biocatalysts, that is, the development of techniques to limit the impact of a newly introduced system element (an artificial pathway in a microbial host or an in vitro reaction network) on the original system

Methods

Our methods revolve around the engineering paradigm of “measure, model, manipulate“. We apply theoretical tools to develop a first rational version of a future biocatalyst, develop then the required analytical tools that allow us to study the behavior of such a catalyst in time, and apply finally the molecular tools that allow us to engineer it towards an improved performance. The work in this group unites genetic engineering, modeling, and advanced MS-analytics.

Projects

NANOCELL
METACODE
ST-FLOW
CADMAD
Improvement of vitamin production
Fine chemical-production