Nick and Paul travelled to Nottingham for the Synthetic Biology UK conference. Nick presented on our barcoded transposon library in Cupriavidus. Paul presented on our various approaches to enhancing CO2 fixation in cyanobacteria.
Nick winning fans in Nottingham
Michael's paper, Protein allocation and utilization in the versatile chemolithoautotroph Cupriavidus necator was accepted in eLife. The paper explores enzyme expression and essentiality in Cupriavidus necator, grown in different conditions. This strain is of industrial interest since it can produce the bioplastic PHB from a range of substrates, including H2+CO2 and formate, a C1 chemical that can be produced from electricity and CO2. A main finding of the paper is that many enzymes are underutilized, as they are in abundance or excess even when not needed. For example, the Calvin cycle is expressed even during growth on sugar. This may be a way for this soil bacterium to quickly adapt to changing nutrient conditions. The list of essential genes in multiple growth conditions will also be useful for others working on this promising strain.
Kiyan's paper, Cycling between growth and production phases increases cyanobacteria bioproduction of lactate was published in Metabolic Engineering. The paper presents a strategy for increasing productivity of cyanobacteria by controlling when and how much of fixed CO2 is diverted to product biosynthesis instead of cell growth. Up to 90% of fixed CO2 could be converted to lactate using a CRISPR interference metabolic switch. Oscillating this switch allowed cells to cycle between growth and product synthesis, resulting in a 3-fold higher overall product titer comparaed to when no switch was present.
Paul presented at the CeBiTec Research Conference in Bielefeld. The theme of this yaers conference was "Prospects and challenges for the development of algal biotechnology." This was the first in-person conference in 1.5 years!
Check out and register to attend the 15th Nordic Photosynthesis Congress in Gothenburg! The theme is, "Capturing light to power the planet." This will be a great conference about various aspects of photosynthesis, including metabolic engineering of plants and cyanobacteria! Paul is helping to organize along with Cornelia Spetea-Wiklund (Gothenburg University) and Alexey Amunts (Stockholm University). We have a fantastic invited speaker lineup from all over Europe, and we will select about 20 abstracts to give talks. The meeting is NOT restricted to just the Nordics! See the attached flyer. Registration deadline is 15 August. The event will be in person!
Markus successfully defended his Ph.D. thesis, titled, On thermodynamic and kinetic constraints in autotrophic metabolism. The defense was held in person at SciLifeLab. The opponent was Professor Bas Teusink of Vrije University Netherlands, and the committee was Marija Cvijovic of Gothenburg University, Kirstin Gutekunst of University Kassel, and Daniel Machado of NTNU Trondheim. The defense featured discussion about metabolic control theory, different model types, cyanobacteria metabolism, and the definition of cell, "fitness." Thanks to the committee, and congratulations to Markus!
Elias Englund joined our lab in Stockholm as a post-doc, funded by his Formas post-doc grant. Elias did his Ph.D. in Uppsala with Peter Lindblad, then moved to UC Berkeley to do post-doc under Jay Keasling.
Anna Karlsson has joined the group as our newest Ph.D. student. Anna is from Stockholm and did her undergradate degree in Biotechnology at KTH. Anna is co-advised by Fredrik Edfors, Rui Miao, and Åsa Strand (Umeå). She will work on various projects centered around post-translational regulation of the Calvin cycle in plant.
We celebrated the start of summer with a barbeque. Social coordinator Linnéa insisted on the date! After hovering over the weather forecast all morning, few of us brought umbrellas. It rained for hours, and hasnt rained since :) Despite all of that, we found shelter and had a great time!
Johannes successfully defended his Ph.D. thesis, titled Adaptations and constraints associated with autotrophy in microbial metabolism. The defense was held over Zoom. The opponent was Professor Costas Maranas of Penn State University, and the committee was Ilka Axmann of HHU Dusseldorf, Veronique Chotteau of KTH, and Aleksej Zelezniak of Chalmers. Congratulations to Johannes! This excellent thesis can be downloaded at the link above.
