NTNU Synthetic Biology Engineering
- NTNU Analysis, Design and Control of Microbial Systems
- NTNU Aquaculture Biotechnology
- NTNU Bioreactor Design and Operation
- NTNU Biopolymer Engineering
- NTNU Genome Editing
- NTNU Human Physiome
- NTNU Morphogenetic Engineering
- NTNU Phenomics Technology
- NTNU Tissue Engineering
- NTNU Synthetic Biology Engineering
- NTNU Therapeutic Targeting
- NTNU Responsible Research and Innovation
Finished project
(R) NTNU Synthetic Biology Engineering Blurb
NTNU Synthetic Biology Engineering
Engineering new complex functions in cells is a prerequisite for novel industrial biotechnology.
Research activity
Synthetic biology encompasses the design and construction of new biological parts, devices and systems, as well as the re-design and fabrication of existing biological systems. This involves massive transdisciplinary activity, but in contrast to systems biology, synthetic biology is fundamentally an engineering application of biological science. At NTNU we are actively engaged in a broad range of synthetic biology research. Our main areas of research interest focus on the engineering of energy solutions based on biological systems, the production of medicines and pharmaceuticals using engineered organisms, the engineering of biological systems for the production of high-value chemicals, as well as genetic engineering and computational analyses to understand fundamental design principles in biology. This research stream is tightly linked to NTNU Bioreactor Design and Operation and NTNU Analysis, Design and Control of Microbial Systems.
NTNU Synthetic Biology Engineering serves as a nexus for R&D opportunities. For instance, the NTNU iGEM teams have been actively participating in iGEM – the premiere international competition in Synthetic Biology for university students – each year since 2011, receiving many gold medals. Read more about previous NTNU iGEM teams, and about the work of the current team.
Ongoing research activities:
- Design the Future 2 (PhotoSynLab): Thinking Soils: Engineered bacteria as computational agents in the design and manufacture of new materials and structures. The project aims to manipulate living organisms to make new materials and structures driven by Synthetic Biology.
- MetaFluidics (PhotoSynLab): Advanced toolbox for rapid and cost-effective functional metagenomic screening –microbiology meets microfluidics. The project develops advandced functional screening methods utilising synthetic biology and microfluidics.
- INBioPharm: The INBioPharm project will develop a new, integrated, generic platform for more efficient discovery and production of novel bioactive compounds with medical application potential.
- Biosmart: How can we accomplish the transition to a smart Bioeconomy? Biosmart is RCN-sponsored research project that together with international partners addresses this crucial question. The NTNU contribution to this project is the assessment of bioenergetic framework to direct this transition.
- NanoWired (LINK:http://photosynlab.org). Biological nanowires may provide a blueprint for developing biological solar cells. Photosynthetic bacteria utilize nanowires to donate electrons to extracellular acceptors. This electron transport has physiological relevance for accessing essential metals, respiration in the absence of oxygen. Replacing the natural electron acceptors with electrodes may lead to biology-based photo-voltaic devices.
- WineSys: Industrial scale wine production is hampered by wine yeasts’ ability to fully use available nutrients in grape must, leaving compounds that may reduce quality, or that allow unwanted growth of microorganisms. The goal of WineSys is to optimize wine yeasts’ carbon/nitrogen consumption and by-product generation. This will be done in a GMO-free manner using high throughput directed massively parallel laboratory evolution and computational modeling.
- MetApp: (LINK:http://www.sintef.no/projectweb/metapp/) Methylotrophy, the ability of microorganisms to use methanol as their sole source of carbon and energy for growth, bears the potential to build value from methanol through production of special, fine, bulk, and fuel chemicals. Methanol is abundant and regarded as a highly attractive non-feed raw material in microbial fermentation. The goal of this project is the first application of systems biology to bacterial methylotrophy to gain systems-level understanding of evolutionary alternatives of a key metabolic trait.
- SYSTERACT: There is an urgent need for novel antibiotics to fight life-threatening infections and to counteract the increasing problem of propagating antibiotic resistance. Recently, new molecular genetic and biochemical tools have provided insight into the enormous unexploited genetic pool of environmental microbial biodiversity for new antibiotic compounds. The goal of this project is to develop the model organism Actinobacterium Streptomyces coelicolor into a 'Superhost' for the efficient production of antibiotic compounds, enabling a faster discovery of new antibiotics from environmental microbial resources.
NTNU Synthetic Biology Engineering is of direct relevance to other research areas at NTNU, such as nanomedicine, tissue-on-chips, artificial organs, and lab-on-a-chip systems.
The research activities at NTNU Synthetic Biology Engineering make use of several high-technology platforms: