A novel computational and experimental platform for the automated design of synthetic organisms for the production of novel specialty chemicals.
This SBIR Phase II project aims at bringing together computational enzyme design with systems biology to create a fully integrated platform for the design and test of novel cell factories for the production of fine and specialty chemicals. During the Phase I work of this STTR program, Arzeda and the University of Washington have successfully developed a high-performance software code to rapidly design novel metabolic pathways to produce any target chemical from central metabolism. In the Phase II of the program, Arzeda is further advancing the concept by (1) developing a high-performance pathway prioritization module to estimate each designed pathway yield and impact on organism metabolism in the context of whole-genome models and (2) use the software platform to design libraries of pathways for the production of a variety of specialty chemical targets that are commercially valuable and not known to be produced by fermentation at scale. Then, (3) using an experimental screening setup, the DNA for all the proposed pathways is assembled screened at high-throughput for detectable production of the target chemicals. less This SBIR Phase II project aims at bringing together computational enzyme design with systems biology to create a fully integrated platform for the design and test of novel cell factories for the production of fine and specialty chemicals. During the Phase I work of this STTR program, Arzeda and the University of Washington have successfully developed a high-performance software code to rapidly design novel metabolic pathways to produce any target chemical from central metabolism. In the Phase II of the program, Arzeda is... more
The successful candidate will be working with Arzeda head of metabolic engineering to construct and optimize levulinic acid producing strains. The candidate will be responsible for the construction, testing and optimization of the candidate fermentation Yeast strains that implement the novel enzymatic pathway designed in Phase I and being improved and optimized in Phase II. The candidate will work closely with the pathway design and enzyme design and engineering teams (upstream) and the business team that will be interfacing with customers (downstream). The mentor has 15+ years of experience in academic and industrial metabolic engineering and will provide guidance while letting the candidate explore relevant avenues of research to engineer the most efficient strains. The successful candidate will ideally have previous experience in Yeast metabolic engineering, and at least some practical experience with work in bacteria. Experience with the metabolic engineering of organic acid producing strains and pathways a big plus. The candidate should be independent while demonstrating excellent team work ability, along with strong analytical and presentation skills.
