Michael Krogh Jensen and Jay Keasling from the Novo Nordisk Foundation Center for Biosustainability has edited the new volume of Springer’s popular ‘Methods in Molecular Biology’ series format.
What are the key steps associated with the design, building, and testing of synthetic metabolic pathways for robust cell factory performance? The answer to this question can be found in the new book ‘Synthetic Metabolic Pathways: Methods and Protocols’ edited by Michael Krogh Jensen and Jay Keasling.
“It can sometimes be difficult in scientific papers where you only have two or three main conclusions to provide hands-on notes that you can apply directly to the work being done in the lab. This book can hopefully be benchtop literature that can give some concrete tips and strategies to designing, building and testing cell factories,” says Co-Principal Investigator at the Novo Nordisk Foundation Center for Biosustainability, Michael Krogh Jensen.
He was contacted by Springer nearly two years ago if he could be interested in editing a book focusing on methods and protocols that can be applied to the design, building, and testing of synthetic metabolic pathways. Since then, one of the main tasks has been to put together a great team of scientists that could contribute with their knowledge.
“I find that we have a lot of interesting methods at our center and all the research we are conducting is focused on the paradigm of designing, building, and testing. Thus, it was natural to ask a lot of the talented people that are engaged in the work here to contribute. It is an excellent opportunity for master students, Ph.D. students, and postdocs to effectively disseminate their findings”, states Michael Krogh Jensen.
Dissemination is without any doubt key in this book. None of the chapters are very text-heavy, instead the readers are for example provided a CRISPR-Cas9 toolkit for actinomycete genome editing, computational methods to assess the production potential for bio-based chemicals, and a bacteria genome editing strategy for control of transcription and protein stability.
CFB on the world map
"This book can hopefully be benchtop literature that can give some concrete tips and strategies to designing, building and testing cell factories."
Michael Krogh Jensen, Co-Principal Investigator at the Novo Nordisk Foundation Center for Biosustainability
According to Michael Krogh Jensen, Springer’s focus on methods in molecular biology could very well be the reason why the publisher had its radar on the Novo Nordisk Foundation Center for Biosustainability.
“In the end of 2015, we focused on developing new methods for genome engineering and we had our first biosensor in the pipeline as well. The center came on the world map, and we are unique in the sense that we have great confidence in the design-build-test paradigm. Maybe this paradigm could be introduced to even more labs around the globe and be a clear vantage point of scientific research,” says he.
After publishing the book, Springer has already asked for publishing a version 2.0 to four years from now. The second version should include chapters about machine learning.
“If we knew already in 2015 that machine learning and regression analysis would become such an important player in this field than we would have focused more on it in the book as well. It would have been very relevant when it comes to protein design and pathway setups,” emphasizes Michael Krogh Jensen.
While we will have to wait four years for a new book, “Synthetic Metabolic Pathways: Methods and Protocols” can be bought here.