First functional 'designer' chromosome synthesized in yeast

Biodiesel Magazine


By NYU Langone Medical Center | March 31, 2014


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UCLA researchers create synthetic glycolysis pathway

Biofuels Digest

Meghan Sapp | October 14, 2013

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Engineers design new synthetic biology circuits that combine memory and logic

Biobased Digest
Tom Saidak
February 12, 2013   Read more

Discovery in synthetic biology a step closer to new industrial revolution

Biofuels Digest

Thomas Saidak
February 11, 2013   Read more

Lawrence Berkeley Lab to consolidate in California

Biofuels Digest
Isabel Lane April 2, 2012

In Washington, Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory is planning to develop a major new research facility in Richmond to consolidate its biofuel-focused energy labs. The project is to have an annual budget between $200 and $250 million, 95% of the funding coming from the DOE. The effort is receiving significant pushback from activists against “synthetic biology,” though most of the protests have been dismissed as “baseless.”

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Biological Complexity Under Attack

Genetic Engineering & Biotechnology News
Feature Articles: Oct 1, 2011 (Vol. 31, No. 17)
Leroy Hood, M.D., Ph.D. A Personal View of Systems Biology and the Coming of "Big" Science

This is a truly remarkable time in the biological sciences. Biology now has the opportunity to effectively attack some of the most fundamental problems of society, including healthcare, agriculture, bio-energy, a sustainable environment, and nutrition.

These opportunities are a result of system strategies for probing biological complexity, emerging technologies that are allowing us to explore new dimensions of data space, and the provision of novel analytical tools for analyzing, integrating, and modeling large datasets.

Over the past 40 years, I have done a lot of thinking about biological complexity and these thoughts have directly and/or indirectly led to me to participate in a series of paradigm changes that have transformed how we think about and decipher the complexities of biology and medicine.

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Starting a New Metabolic Path: JBEI and Berkeley Lab Researchers Develop Technique to Help Metabolic Engineering

Chem.info

By Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory Wednesday, April 20, 2011

Efforts to engineer new metabolic pathways into microbes for the inexpensive production of valuable chemical products, such as biofuels or therapeutic drugs, should get a significant boost in a new development from the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE)’s Joint BioEnergy Institute (JBEI). Researchers there have successfully demonstrated a technique they call “targeted proteomics” that speeds up and improves the ability to identify and quantify specific proteins within a cell or microorganism.

“Metabolic engineers and synthetic biologists can use our directed proteomic technique to get useful information about protein levels in their organisms, which in turn can be used to direct valuable followup experiments,” says Christopher Petzold, chemist and deputy director for proteomics at JBEI, who led this research. “We believe that targeted proteomics is a useful tool that fills a much needed gap in efforts to engineer new metabolic pathways for microbes.”

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Jay Keasling: 'We can use synthetic biology to make jet fuel'

guardian.co.uk
by Ian Sample The Observer, Sunday 27 February 2011

Keasling has already created anti-malarial drugs from yeast. Now he is working on a replacement for jet fuel and diesel

In 1974, Waclaw Szybalski, a cancer specialist at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, described a radical vision of the future. He foresaw a world where scientists had mastered biology to the point of creating life from scratch. His prediction was not far off the mark. Today, "synthetic biology" – the phrase was coined by Szybalski – is one of the most exciting avenues of modern science. Research on artificial life is under way; synthetic viruses a reality. But the swift progress of the field has raised hopes and fears in equal measure. While some argue that the work points the way to green energy and greater food production, others fear synthetic bugs might escape from the lab and spark a catastrophe.

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University of Buffalo Scientists Study Development of More Robust Yeast Strains for Biofuels Production

Biofuels Journal
Date Posted: September 10, 2010

Buffalo, NY—A University at Buffalo chemist is applying a common mathematical concept to synthetic biology research aimed at finding ways to boost biofuels production.

Synthetic biology is a rapidly growing field in which microorganisms are engineered to produce novel chemicals, such as pharmaceuticals or fuels.

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God loses monopoly: Synthetic Genomics creates first synthetic bacterial cell

Biofuels Digest
May 21, 2010
Jim Lane

In California, a long-term monopoly on the creation of bacterial cell life — held, reportedly, by God (or the open-source community known as evolution) — was broken yesterday when a scientific team headed by Drs. Craig Venter, Hamilton Smith and Clyde Hutchison announced completion of the final step in their quest to create the first synthetic bacterial cell.

Say ‘Hey’ to Syndi
Her formal name is M. mycoides JCVI-syn1.0 – you can call her Syndi.

In a publication in Science, Daniel Gibson, Ph.D. and a team of 23 additional researchers outline the steps to synthesize a 1.08 million base pair Mycoplasma mycoides genome, constructed from four bottles of chemicals that make up DNA. This synthetic genome has been “booted up” in a cell to create the first cell controlled completely by a synthetic genome.

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LS9, Inc., U.C Berkeley, and JBEI Make Major Breakthrough in Cellulosic Fuels Production

EarthTimes
Posted : Wed, 27 Jan 2010 18:01:49 GMT

Researchers Develop Microbes that Produce Fuels Directly from Cellulosic Biomass

South San Francisco, CA (PRWEB) January 27, 2010 -- LS9, Inc, the Renewable Petroleum Company™, today announced a major breakthrough in the ability to make cellulosic-derived advanced biofuels. A collaborative team of researchers from LS9, Inc, the University of California at Berkeley, and the U.S. Department of Energy’s Joint BioEnergy Institute (JBEI) have developed a microbe that can produce an advanced biofuel directly from cellulosic biomass in a one-step process.

Using the power of synthetic biology, the team of researchers engineered a microbe that consolidates advanced biofuels production and cellulosic bioprocessing for the first time. This breakthrough enables the production of advanced hydrocarbon fuels and chemicals in a single fermentation process that does not require additional chemical transformations.

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Synth Pop: Will “video kill the radio star” and synthetic fuels at popular prices replace first-gen biofuels, and when?

Biofuels Digest
December 04, 2009 Jim Lane

In this years’s Hot 50, there’s one unmistakable trend: synthetic biology companies developing drop-in, renewable fuels at popular prices. “Magic bugs” from Amyris, LS9, Gevo, Qteros, Joule Biotechnologies, Synthetic Genomics and Virent, among others, are the backbone of the Synth Pop movement in bioenergy.

Where will it take us, and when? A profile in Genetic Engineering & Biotechnology News and news from Amyris that they are buying into ethanol operations in Brazil to get a hold of low-cost sugars, tell a part of the tale. Will Synth Pop replace first-gen fuels – will video kill the radio start – and when, and how?

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Microbe Metabolism Harnessed To Produce Fuel

RedOrbit.com
Posted on: Friday, 11 September 2009, 09:34 CDT

NSF-supported researchers use synthetic biology technology to engineer the next generation of biofuels

Microbes such as the yeast we commonly use in baking bread and fermenting beer are now being engineered to produce the next generation of biofuels. Jay Keasling, a professor of chemical engineering at the University of California, Berkeley, is leading a team of scientists in an effort to manipulate the chemistry within bacteria so they will produce fuel from sugar.

At the Joint BioEnergy Institute (JBEI), one of three research centers set up by the Department of Energy for the research and development of biofuels, Keasling is utilizing synthetic biology techniques involving chemistry, genetic engineering and molecular biology. Foundational work being done at the Synthetic Biology Engineering Research Center (SynBERC), where Keasling is director, will underpin the research at JBEI. SynBERC is funded by the National Science Foundation (NSF).

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Ethanol Crops? Lab Finds New Method To Turn Biomass Into Gasoline

The Post Chronicle
Published: May 6, 2009
by Jasmin Melvin


U.S. scientists have combined a discovery from a French garbage dump
with breakthroughs in synthetic biology to come up with a novel method for turning plant waste into gasoline, without the need of any food sources.

A synthetic biology lab at the University of California San Francisco identified a compound able to use biomass to produce a gas that can be converted into a gasoline chemically indistinguishable from fossil-fuel based petroleum.

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Czech and Korean researchers clinch biomass patent

European Research

A Czech-South Korean research team has obtained a patent on a new method supporting plant biomass production which will also allow the cultivation of plants with a bigger biomass production. Both the food-processing and pharmaceutical industries can, in theory, use the patent, according to the team.

'The invention, which enables the cultivation of plants with an increased production of mass, presents the results of fundamental research activities,' Dr Eva Janouskovcova from Technology Transfer Office of Masaryk University told Research Headlines. 'Such an increase may be an advantage for the food or pharmacy industry,' she said. 'No less important is the production of energetic plants, such as the sorrel of Uteush. Even more applications can be found in biotechnology for the decontamination of affected soil by phytoremediation.

'The Czech researchers from the University's Institute of Experimental Biology determined that proteins and plant hormones play a key role in the division of plant stem cells, which can also be used with genetic engineering supporting methods. 'We have uncovered that a genetic intervention causing the regulation of these proteins' activities can modify plant growing,' project leader Dr Jan Hejatko explained.

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Synthetic Biology: Its Promise And The Challenge

Medical News Today
Date: 15 Apr 2008 - 4:00 PDT

Synthetic biology is a new area of biotechnology research that holds a great deal of promise and controversy. Using in-depth understanding of genomes, scientists are now designing and building DNA from scratch. The results are useful organisms that can efficiently produce advanced biofuels and medicines. Researchers in the field have proposed policies that can ensure continued research and development while preventing possible misuses of the technology.

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