BIOFUELS PATHWAYS GROUP (Continued)
Ee-Been’s research focus at JBEI is on the biosynthesis of hydrocarbon molecules in bacteria. This effort will explore the use of transcriptomics analysis, and bioinformatics tools to identify novel genes involved in the synthesis of these hydrocarbon molecules.
Taek Soon's research at JBEI is to design new biofuel molecules using isoprenoid pathway. To design biofuel target, he prepares target molecules, and studies their fuel property. He will also design and construct the biosynthetic pathway for the production of these fuel molecules.
Isoprenoids are a highly diverse class of natural products from which numerous commercial chemicals and medicines are derived. My Research is focused on optimizing the expression of the heterologous mevalonate isoprenoid pathway from Saccharomyces cerevisiae in E.coli to overproduce IPP and DMAPP. I am interested to see how the ribosome binding site strength affects the protein levels and how the production of the target metabolite is affected as a consequence. To answer this question, different ribosome binding sites have been used in front of each gene in the pathway and protein levels, intermediate metabolite levels, and the concentration of the target metabolite are measured. It is important for us to answer these questions to find the best way of putting different parts of a non-native pathway together in our microbial host.
Eric is currently working on engineering native and heterologous pathways for biofuel production.
