Projects

The main objective of SynBio4Flav is to go further in the standardization of high complexity synthetic biological parts, and to demonstrate the development of a standardized, and systematic platform for flavonoids production based on synthetic microbial consortia (SMCs).

Increasing temperature in the European wine producing regions is having a negative impact on this key sector. Climate change results in a lack of balance between technological and phenolic ripening of wine grapes and, as a consequence, alcohol increase in wines. This trend is of great concern for the European wine industry because it has a negative impact on wine quality, becomes a hurdle for international trade, and jeopardizes compatibility of moderate wine consumption with a healthy lifestyle. ...

Microbial strains used in biotechnological industry need to produce their biotechnological products at high yield and at the same time they are desired to be robust to the intrinsic nutrient dynamics of large-scale bioreactors, most noticeably to transient limitations of carbon sources and oxygen. The engineering principles for robustness of metabolism to nutrient dynamics are however not yet well understood. The ROBUSTYEAST project aims to reveal these principles for microbial strain improvement ...

D-xylose is a major component of lignocellulose and is after D-glucose the most abundant monosaccharide on earth. However, D-xylose cannot be naturally utilised by several industrially relevant microorganisms. On the way to a strong bio-based economy in Europe, this widely available feedstock has to be made accessible for the sustainable microbial synthesis of value-added chemical building blocks to be used in a broad range of applications. The project aims at engineering Corynebacterium glutamicum ...

Systems Biology studies the properties and phenotypes that emerge from the interaction of biomolecules where such properties are not obvious from those of the individual molecules. By connecting fields such as genomics, proteomics, bioinformatics, mathematics, cell biology, genetics, mathematics, engineering and computer sciences, Systems Biology enables discovery of yet unknown principles underlying the functioning of living cells. At the same time, testable and predictive models of complex ...

GMO free systems optimization of wine yeast for wine production by massive scale directed evolution

MOSES (Micro Organism Systems biology: Energy and Saccharomyces cerevisiae) develops a new Systems Biology approach, which is called 'domino systems biology'. It uses this to unravel the role of cellular free energy ('ATP') in the control and regulation of cell function. MOSES operates though continuous iterations between partner groups through a new systems-biology driven data-management workflow. MOSES also tries to serve as a substrate for three or more other SYSMO programs.

Gene interaction networks and models of cation homeostasis in Saccharomyces cerevisiae