Engineering Escherichia coli for using carbon monoxide as the sole carbon and energy source

SBRC Nottingham is one of three UK centres created by the BBSRC/EPSRC in 2014 and has received £14.3M in funding for a 5-year period. The proposed project will contribute towards generating new intellectual understanding and knowledge relating to metabolic engineering, enzyme engineering, computation biology, systems and synthetic biology and its applications in developing a metabolically engineered E. coli strain growing on carbon monoxide as the sole carbon and energy source.
E. coli is industrially used for the production of bulk chemicals like amino acids (lysine, Threonene, tryptophane…) and diols (1, 3 popanediol, 1, 4 butanediol, 1, 2 propanediol…). However, due to the feedstocks cost, the production of a lot of bulk chemicals is currently not economical.

Developing microorganism that could use cheap carbon source like carbon monoxide would largely expand the range of bulk chemicals that could be economically produced by E. coli. The project will aim to create a synthetic pathway for the use of carbon monoxide by E. coli as the sole carbon and energy source through computation biology, enzyme engineering, systems and synthetic biology approaches.

This 4-year PhD project is part of a University-funded Doctoral Training Programme in Synthetic Biology and associated with Nottingham’s new BBSRC/EPSRC Synthetic Biology Research Centre. Students will also benefit from a diverse range of training opportunities, including specialist workshops, lectures and seminars, as well as participation in Nottingham’s yearly BBSRC DTP Spring School event. This project will be supervised by Prof. Philippe Soucaille, Dr Naglis Malys and Dr Minyeong Yoo.

Candidates interested in applying for this research opportunity should send a copy of their CV and 2 academic references directly to [Email Address Removed] for consideration. Candidates shortlisted for interview will be contacted following the deadline.