Start
Jan 20, 2015 - 17:00
End
Jan 20, 2015 - 18:00
Venue
Room 240 Computer Lab Chemical Engineering
Event Type
Speaker
Ambareesh Phadnavis PhD Student Technical University of Denmark.
Title
Lipid-biorefinery - Metabolic engineering of Yeast's lipid biosynthesis pathway.
Abstract : I will be talking about concept of Lipid-Biorefinery that I have worked upon and developed along the course of my PhD studies here at Technical University of Denmark. I will be presenting my relevant work done during course of PhD studies in context of the lipid-based biorefinery and its potentials in Indian scenario. The technology that is developed along course of designing lipid-biorefinery during my PhD studies is metabolic engineering of Yeast's lipid biosynthesis pathway to enable it to grow on diverse substrates like sugars digested starch digested lignocellulose crude and pure-glycerol (by-product of biodiesel process) to produce and extracellularly secrete medium-chain fatty acids (C8 to C18) and their derivatives (like mono/di/triglycerides ethyl-esters higher chain alcohols branched fatty acids dicarboxylic acids waxes and very-long chain fatty acids keto acids ceramides) into growth medium. We did this by downregulating Fatty acid catabolism and upregulating key enzymes involved in anabolic pathway. Engineered yeast ferments these diverse substrates to extracellularly secrete the products described above. Along with lipid-based products of interest process also produces ethanol which is in itself a valuable byproduct. With slight modifications there exists possibility of controlling the chain-length of secreted fatty acids or diverting the metabolic flux towards synthesis of other relevant lipid-based compounds. Furthermore all these lipids are secreted in medium thus making need for intracellular extraction process redundant. Looking at the larger picture this concept of Lipid-based biorefinery presents an alluring commercial and scientific potential in India. In terms of diversity of chemicals Bio-based systems can produce high diversity of carbon-skeleton molecules which can be processed chemically to obtain essential value-added end-commodities (plastics lubricants paints and many others). Various prokaryotic organisms including cyanobacteria etc are very promising candidates for development of such biorefineries for sustainable synthesis of value-added compounds along with eukaryotic yeasts that I have personally worked with. Current processes emphasize on obtaining these necessary chemicals from petroleum refinery. Biobased processes provide a robust and sustainable platforms for production of all these chemicals to be used as either fuels or building-block chemicals.