Engineering Biology
Energy Challenge:

Produce affordable and clean energy.

Enable production of energy-dense and carbon-neutral transportation fuels (and other products) from C1 feedstocks (particularly carbon dioxide, carbon monoxide, and methane).

Engineering Biology Objectives & Technical Achievements

Engineer microorganisms that can transform carbon dioxide and electron sources to liquid fuels.

Engineering DNA Biomolecular Engineering Host Engineering Data Science

Efficient CRISPR systems.

Methods for efficiently editing organelle genomes.

Engineer enzymes/pathways for production of hydrocarbons, including decarboxylating/decarbonylating enzymes, cofactor changes on enzymes, and new pathways/enzymes that conserve carbon/energy.

Engineer transporters to facilitate fuel export from the cell.

Develop efficient pathways for production of liquid transportation fuels from metabolic intermediates.

Develop tools to enable engineering of carbon concentration/fixation pathways in CO2 fixers.

Large-scale knockout of unnecessary pathways.

Development of carbon transport and concentration mechanisms.

Organelle synthesis.

Metabolic flux analysis of engineered organisms.

Models of microbes in bioreactors to predict performance.

Technoeconomic and life cycle analysis models to determine sustainability of energy production.

BioCAD models for designing gene expression.

Engineer photosynthetic microorganisms that can transform sunlight and carbon dioxide to transportation fuels.

Engineering DNA Biomolecular Engineering Host Engineering Data Science

Efficient CRISPR systems.

Methods for efficiently editing organelle genomes.

Synthesize and transform genomes of organelles.

Light energy conversion: engineer microbes and algae to more efficiently convert solar light to carbon/ATP.

Light capture: expand the range of solar spectrum wavelengths that can be captured by photosynthesis.

Improve CO2 fixation by reducing 2-phosphoglycolate produced by RuBISCO O2 fixation.

Engineer enzymes/pathways for production of hydrocarbons, including decarboxylating/decarbonylating enzymes, cofactor changes on enzymes, and new pathways/enzymes that conserve carbon/energy.

Engineer transporters to facilitate fuel export from the cell.

Develop tools for controlling gene expression in photosynthetic microbes.

Develop efficient pathways for production of liquid transportation fuels from metabolic intermediates.

Development of carbon transport and concentration mechanisms.

Technoeconomic and life cycle analysis models to determine sustainability of energy production.

BioCAD models for designing gene expression.

Metabolic flux analysis of engineered organisms.

Models of microbes in photobioreactors to predict performance.

Develop microorganisms that can transform methane to liquid transportation fuels.

Engineering DNA Biomolecular Engineering Host Engineering Data Science

Efficient CRISPR systems.

Synthesize large clusters of genes that encode metabolic pathways for various products (including fuels, commodity chemicals, and specialty chemicals) ready to be transformed into any microbial host.

Recombinant expression of particulate and soluble methane monoxygenase (MMO) and demonstrate in vivo activity in a heterologous host.

Improve catalytic activity of MMO in native and heterologous hosts.

Engineer enzymes/pathways for production of hydrocarbons, including decarboxylating/decarbonylating enzymes, cofactor changes on enzymes, and new pathways/enzymes that conserve carbon/energy.

Engineer transporters to facilitate fuel export from the cell.

Growth on alternative carbon sources to allow systematic genetic screening of critical enzymes for methane utilization.

More efficient and rapid transformation methods.

Large-scale knockout of unnecessary pathways.

Develop efficient pathways for production of liquid transportation fuels from metabolic intermediates.

Metabolic flux analysis of engineered organisms.

Models of microbes in bioreactors to predict performance.

Technoeconomic and life cycle analysis models to determine sustainability of energy production.

BioCAD models for designing gene expression.

Engineer microorganisms that can transform carbon dioxide and electron sources to methane.

Engineering DNA Biomolecular Engineering Host Engineering Data Science

Efficient CRISPR systems.

Methods for efficiently editing organelle genomes.

Synthesize and transform genomes of organelles.

Light energy conversion: engineer microbes and algae to more efficiently convert solar light to carbon/ATP.

Light capture: expand the range of solar spectrum wavelengths that can be captured by photosynthesis.

Improve CO2 fixation by reducing 2-phosphoglycolate produced by RuBISCO O2 fixation.

Engineer enzymes/pathways for production of hydrocarbons, including decarboxylating/decarbonylating enzymes, cofactor
changes on enzymes, and new pathways/enzymes that conserve carbon/energy.

Engineer transporters to facilitate fuel export from the cell.

Engineer enzymes/pathways for production of hydrogen (via water splitting).

Develop tools for controlling gene expression in photosynthetic microbes.

Develop efficient pathways for production of liquid transportation fuels from metabolic intermediates.

Development of carbon transport and concentration mechanisms.

Technoeconomic and life cycle analysis models to determine sustainability of energy production.

BioCAD models for designing gene expression.

Metabolic flux analysis of engineered organisms.

Models of microbes in photobioreactors to predict performance.

Last updated: June 19, 2019 Back
Engineering Biology
Health & Medicine Challenge:

Promote equitable access to healthcare, patient representation in research, democratization of medicine, and the development of personalized medicines.

Make cutting-edge therapy more available and affordable.

Last updated: June 19, 2019 Back
Engineering Biology
Health & Medicine Challenge:

Address environmental threats to health, including toxins, pollution, accidents, radiation, exposure, and injury.

Develop systems to detect, identify, reverse, neutralize, and clear biochemical damage.

Last updated: June 19, 2019 Back