FURI | Summer 2020

Engineering of a Microbial Host for the Production of Aromatic Chemicals

Many valuable chemicals utilized in society, such as medicines and cosmetics, have an aromatic structure and traditionally require many unsustainable components in production. Obtaining aromatic carbon instead from biomass would divert waste and pave the way for the sustainable production of many value-added chemicals. One method of utilizing biomass for this purpose is through the introduction of biosynthetic pathways composed of biomass-degrading enzymes and signal peptides to a bacterium, developing a recombinant strain capable of the extracellular breakdown of biomass.