Developing efficient cell factories, able to produce new or traditional fermentation products at high productivities and yields is an imperative need for the industrial feasibility of bioprocesses. Our main focus is to use the yeast Saccharomyces cerevisiae as production host; we work to develop S. cerevisiae in a number of ways to
i) increase the substrate range to enable use of all biomass-derived sugars,
ii) expand the palette of target products
iii) improve the microbial robustness towards lignocellulose-derived inhibitors and process hardiness.
In concert to the extensive work on S. cerevisiae, we also characterize and develop non-conventional yeasts, filamentous fungi and bacteria as production hosts. We widely use omics analysis to characterize our strains. Furthermore, we put emphasis into genetic tool development for cell factory design. Here, we focus on accelerating the design-build-test-learn cycle, standardized strain engineering strategies and high throughput strain evaluation methodology, including use of biosensors. CRISPR/Cas9 based genome editing technologies and CRISPRi based alteration of gene transcription form core competences of our research efforts.
Ongoing centers and projects:
Genetic biosensors for developing better cell factories for production of
platform chemicalsA novel strategy for cell factory design applied to adipic acid – combining synthetic pathway and
electrofermentationEngineering enzymes for the synthesis of 6-aminohex-2-enoic acid: first steps to green production of
adipic acid Engineering amino acid lyases for novel bio-based microbial cell factory: first step to
bio-based adipic acidUpgrading of renewable domestic raw materials to value-added bulk and fine chemicals for a biobased economy: technology development, systems integration and environmental impact assessment (
BioBuF) Read more at the
project web-site.