The group focuses on metabolic engineering of yeast cell factories for biosustainable production of chemicals from renewable feedstocks.
The group's projects include both fine chemicals (e.g., food colours, antioxidants, pheromones) and commodity chemicals (e.g., muconic acid for polymers).
We develop genetic engineering tools that facilitate iterative cycles of strain development and work on methodologies for accelerated strain design based on systems biology-level data and modelling.
We are involved in the following projects:
PAcMEN: 'Predictive and Accelerated Metabolic Engineering Network'. The network trains 16 European PhD students in biotechnology research and innovation.
DAFIA: 'Bio-macromolecules from municipal solid bio-waste fractions and fish waste for high added value applications'. Our role is to create novel yeast-based fermentation processes for turning municipal solid waste into plastic precursors
OLEFINE: 'OLEAginous yeast platforms for FINE chemicals'. OLEFINE partners develop biotechnology-based manufacturing of insect pheromones for plant protection.
SHIKIFACTORY100: 'Modular cell factories for the production of 100 compounds from the shikimate pathway'. Our role is to create yeast platform chassis for production of shikimate pathway molecules.
YEAST-TRANS: 'Deciphering the transport mechanisms of small xenobiotic molecules in synthetic yeast cell factories'. We study how small molecules are transported across the membranes and apply this knowledge to improve product secretion by cell factories.
The Yeast Metabolic Engineering group is located at The Novo Nordisk Center for Biosustainability, DTU Biosustain, and it is headed by Professor Irina Borodina.