| Project Detail |
Microbial lipids production from lignocellulosic biomass using synthetic biology Microbial lipids from bio-based industries are a possible sustainable alternative to petroleum-derived fuels and chemicals. The commercial development of microbial lipids from inexpensive feedstocks like lignocellulosic biomass is currently limited due to high production costs resulting from physicochemical pretreatments and the extraction of intracellular lipids. The EU-funded SynBioLipid project will therefore construct engineered organisms with improved metabolic capabilities, integrating pretreatment, fermentation, detoxification and secretion of lipids. The researchers will use fungus Yarrowia lipolytica as a model microorganism for microbial lipids production from lignocellulosic biomass and develop strategies to overcome the challenges associated with the expression of large heterologous pathways. The work will generate synthetic microbial consortia comprising specialist strains and use these communities for the production of microbial lipids from lignocellulose. |
