Journal Club

Check back here often to read about what we in the Pakrasi lab have been reading about. We'll highlight new and noteworthy research in the areas of photosynthesis, synthetic and systems biology, or anything else we just think is really cool.

Automated Design of Synthetic Ribosome Binding Sites to Precisely Control Protein Expression

This paper demonstrates a model for predicting the strength of expression generated by a library of synthetic ribosome binding sites.

Parts plus pipes: Synthetic biology approaches to metabolic engineering.

This timely review by Boyle and Silver discusses Synthetic biology components (the parts) that Metabolic Engineers can use to construct biological "pipes" (conversion of substrates to desired products). The optimal integration of “parts and pipes” could improve product yields and expand the array of products available. This review presents emerging engineering principles relative to next-generation metabolic engineering challenges .

Identification and microbial production of a terpene-based advanced biofuel

A team at the DOE Joint BioEnergy Institute has identified a terpene-based biofuel, bisabolane, for use as a dieself fuel replacement. They screened candidates for the efficient production of bisabolene (the immediate precursor of bisabolane) and identified plant enzymes that achieve this in both E. coli and S. cerevisiae. Finally, they showed that codon optimization of heterologous genes and swapping of stronger promoter elements led to a >2-fold increase in bisabolene titers.

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Journal Club