(67g) Genome-Scale Engineering: A New Frontier in Metabolic Engineering

Advances in reading, writing and editing genomes have greatly expanded our ability to reprogram biological systems at the resolution of a single nucleotide and on the scale of a whole genome. Such capacity has drastically accelerated the cycle of design, build and test in synthetic biology to construct organisms as cell factories for synthesis of fuels and chemicals. In this presentation, I will highlight our recent work in the development of new molecular parts and tools for genome-scale engineering and our attempt in automating the design, build and test cycle. Examples include but are not limited to: (a) design and construction of the CRISPR-Cas system for multiplexed genome engineering in Saccharomyces cerevisiae and Streptomycetes and for genome-scale engineering in S. cerevisiae; (b) design and construction of the RNA interference machinery for genome-scale engineering in S. cerevisiae; and (3) design and development of a biological foundry called Illinois Biological Foundry for Advanced Biomanufacturing (iBioFAB) for protein and cellular engineering.