All Synthetic Biology articles
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NewsEngineered yeast gives the US a green edge in the critical minerals market
A new, U.S.-based, environmentally friendly method for mining rare-earth elements used in consumer electronics, clean energy, defense and biomedical imaging uses oxalic acid made by sugar-eating engineered yeast, extracting almost all the rare-earth elements from low-grade ore.
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NewsFrom microbial processes to biofilm control: our interview with JAM Microbial Biotechnology lead editor Manuel Simões
Professor Manuel Simões, Deputy Editor of the Journal of Applied Microbiology, has just been appointed as the journal’s new lead editor in Microbial Biotechnology. Here’s why he’s looking forward to the challenge.
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NewsTeam simulates a living cell that grows and divides
By simulating the life cycle of a minimal bacterial cell — from DNA replication to protein translation to metabolism and cell division — scientists have opened a new frontier of computer vision into the essential processes of life.
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NewsBreadcrumbs lead to fossil free production of everyday goods
The humble breadcrumb could hold the key to cutting out fossil fuels from one of the chemical industry’s most widely used reactions. Scientists have found a one-pot microbial formula that uses waste bread to replace fossil fuel-derived hydrogen in hydrogenation.
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NewsResearchers engineer bacteria capable of consuming tumours from the inside out
A research team is developing a novel tool to treat cancer by engineering hungry bacteria to literally eat tumours from the inside out. They added a gene to the organism from a related bacterium that can better tolerate oxygen and found a way to activate the oxygen-resistant gene at just the right time.
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NewsResearchers rebuild microscopic circadian clock that can control genes
Researchers have solved how the circadian clocks within microscopic bacteria are able to precisely control when different genes are turned on and off during the 24-hour cycle.
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NewsResearchers enable microorganisms to build molecules with light
Researchers are continually looking for new ways to hack the cellular machinery of microbes to make useful products. A new study shows they can expand the biosynthetic capabilities of these microbes by using light to help access new types of chemical transformations.
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NewsNew platform could develop vaccines faster than ever before
Scientists are optimizing a vaccine-development platform created to accelerate how quickly life-saving vaccines can be designed and deployed during infectious-disease outbreaks such as the COVID-19 pandemic.
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NewsResurrected ancient enzyme offers new window into early Earth and the search for life beyond it
By resurrecting a 3.2-billion-year-old enzyme and studying it inside living microbes, researchers have created a new way to improve our understanding of the origins of life on Earth. The study uses synthetic biology to reverse-engineer modern enzymes and rebuild their possible ancestors.
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NewsScientists synthesize medicarpin in baker’s yeast
Scientists have developed a way to synthesize medicarpin in yeast. Like palitaxel in the 1990s, this tumor-attacking sustance has only limited natural quantitites and is considered difficult to synthesize.
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NewsGame-changer for rare sugars: alkaline media unlocks high yield of rare sugars from bacteria
Bacterial EPSs (exopolysaccharides) are emerging as a sustainable source of rare sugars, offering advantages including higher yields and lower environmental impact.
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NewsFrom small experiments to big production: how constant impeller tip speed helps scale-up
Rhamnolipids (RL) are widely used in areas such as oil recovery and bioremediation, but their industrial production has long faced key challenges in the scale-up stage, including poor scalability and reproducibility.
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NewsScientists reprogramme E. coli to transform sugars into eco-friendly surfactant
A new study demonstrates a sustainable microbial strategy for producing lauryl glucoside by engineering a non-natural biosynthetic pathway in Escherichia coli, revealing precursor availability as a key bottleneck and moving towards greener biomanufacturing.
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NewsGolden Gate method enables rapid, fully-synthetic engineering of therapeutically relevant bacteriophages
Researchers have described the first fully synthetic bacteriophage engineering system for Pseudomonas aeruginosa. In this method, researchers engineer bacteriophages synthetically using sequence data rather than bacteriophage isolates.
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NewsBrewing a rare medicine: yeast engineered to produce a valuable astragalus isoflavonoid
By reconstructing the complete biosynthetic pathway inside Saccharomyces cerevisiae and systematically removing metabolic bottlenecks, researchers created the first yeast platform capable of producing calycosin-7-glucoside from simple carbon sources.
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NewsReconstructing nature’s oxindole factory: yeast-based biosynthesis of medicinal indole alkaloids
By identifying four key enzymes from a North American plant and reconstituting them in yeast, scientists have achieved complete de novo biosynthesis of complex oxindole molecules that are difficult to obtain from plants or chemical synthesis.
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NewsEngineering yeast to make rare anticancer saponins: reconstructing the complete biosynthesis of polyphyllin II
By combining plant transcriptomics, enzyme engineering, and synthetic biology, a new study demonstrates, for the first time, the full heterologous production of polyphyllin II in Saccharomyces cerevisiae.
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NewsScientists develop new biosynthetic route to optically pure S-2-Hydroxyisovalerate
By uncovering an unexpected enzyme activity and combining it with precise metabolic engineering, scientists has transformed Escherichia coli into a microbial factory capable of producing gram-per-liter levels of optically pure S-HIV from renewable carbon sources.
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NewsNot only toxic but also a nutrient: guanidine as a nitrogen source
Cyanobacteria are key ecological players of global carbon and nitrogen cycles. They are also becoming increasingly important for carbon-neutral biotechnology. They could serve as green cell factories for a light-driven and sustainable production of chemicals and fuels – a central pillar of the sustainable bioeconomy. Source: André Künzelmann/UFZ ...
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NewsResearchers deploy bacteria to make healthier sugar substitute
Researchers have developed a way to biosynthetically produce an otherwise rare sugar called tagatose, which could very well provide the sweetness and natural taste of table sugar without its potential harms. It might even provide some health benefits.