Topic 3 : Metabolic engineering of heterotrophic bacteria (Sugar to chemicals).

-  After the biofuel revolution, there is a need to develop robust technologies for the conversion of sugars to value-added chemicals.

-  The pathway typically involves 3-5 new genes and may additionally require knocking out of a few genes.

-  This requires

-  Synthetic biology tools for the organism of interest.

-  Developing detailed metabolic models.

- LCMS-based metabolomics.

-  Metabolic engineering and process engineering.

-  The overall goal of the project is to engineer microorganisms for the conversion of agriculture-derived sugars to platform chemicals.