CAREER: Rapid elucidation of genotype-to-phenotype relationships in Clostridium

Bacteria produce chemicals and biofuels from plant waste. They need to be engineered in order to make the process cost-effective. Clostridia produce important chemicals but are difficult to engineer. This project seeks to develop the genetic tools and techniques to make engineering of Clostridia easier. This will have implications for chemical and fuel production from plant waste materials. The investigator will coach an iGEM (International Genetically Engineered Machine) team. The team will have members from Tulane and three community colleges. A quarterly podcast to inform the general public about new advances in synthetic biology will also be produced. <br/><br/><br/>The project is designed to establish relationships between genotype and phenotype in Clostridium. CRISPR (Clustered Regularly Interspaced Short Palindromic Repeats) interference and activation methods will be the primary tools. The project will focus on the tolerance to fermentation inhibiting byproducts in C. pasteurianum. The results of the work are expected to greatly increase the knowledge base for the rational engineering of production strains using waste biomass. The high-throughput methods to be developed here can be adapted to other microbial systems.<br/><br/>This project is jointly funded by the Cellular and Biochemical Engineering Program in CBET, and the Established Program to Stimulate Competitive Research (EPSCoR).<br/><br/>This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.