Synthetic Biology (special seminar at VISTECH)
Just having a chance to visit another science institute in Thailand, VISTECH. It is located at the eastern part of Thailand in Rayong province. As I have listened to the news, very soon there will be a big investment in this area for sure, especially on economics (as I saw in the brochure "hub of industrial research and innovation").
Click the link below for the papers which have been published by his group.
Dr.Tom Ellis
Another few things to update:
There will be three innovation clusters (basically from NSTDA); 1.biopolis 2.aripolis 3.space innopolis which will move to here at VISTECH.
New upgraded national light synchrotron will be built here! (last time that I visited synchrotron at Korat, they still debate where it should be located as well as the funding source for promoting the upgraded synchrotron).
Note from the lecture:
Synthetic biology has become a roadmap for UK development plan (also Singapore, I have been heard that the government tried to put finding onto this area).
In this talk, he mainly focused on yeast cell (S. cerevisiae) as the biological factory to produce targeted products. Synthetic biology is the process which applying engineering principle to biological process.
Framework principle;
1. use part (genetic material - promoter and gene)
2. assembly (in the very old day - it was hard to assembly just one RXN - right now, the method has been improved which you can assemble so many fragments just one RXN tube) - he mentioned that the obstacle on this step has been solved.
3. testing the assemble systems
4. learning the phenotypes
Loop 3-4 becomes the major part of synthetic biology now.
He gave the example on the antibiotic production (penicillin) using synthetic biology (in yeast cell). The major points that I have learned are fine-tuning of each promoter in each gene which involves in penicillin production. He mentioned that his postdoc constructs like "2000" constructs within a single day to find the right balance of production! (Each step requires time and protein amounts differently) - Check out the publication.
Another example is a GPCR-based sensor which can be used as a glucose sensor - Check out the publication.
There is the website which dedicates to the yeast synthetic biology; http://syntheticyeastresource.com/
It is amazing that he and his team can assembly the genetic materials up to 670 kb and replace part of chromosome 16 - each gene will be flanked by loxP and plus adding the tag to tag the progress - then he introduces the product sensor plasmid to measure the product upon the induction of Cre. Then, he sorts out the dynamics of genetic events (through sequencing) that have been occur during product production. With the technology of CRISPR/Cas - his team would like to genetically engineer some genes which could enhance the ability to produce the product.
My curiosity for this case is that how the synthetic biology could reduce the diversity of naturally occurring genetic mutation? Some particular products, I am pretty sure will interfere with the genetic material within the cells (causing cell stress - if they don't design defense mechanism for metabolic overload to preserve the cell survival), therefore, the genetic material won't be the same and the QC won't pass. As a result, upscale would be hard. He introduced the idea which we can let the cell growing in a certain density first and then inducing them to produce the product.
Click the link below for the papers which have been published by his group.
Dr.Tom Ellis
Another few things to update:
There will be three innovation clusters (basically from NSTDA); 1.biopolis 2.aripolis 3.space innopolis which will move to here at VISTECH.
New upgraded national light synchrotron will be built here! (last time that I visited synchrotron at Korat, they still debate where it should be located as well as the funding source for promoting the upgraded synchrotron).
Note from the lecture:
Synthetic biology has become a roadmap for UK development plan (also Singapore, I have been heard that the government tried to put finding onto this area).
In this talk, he mainly focused on yeast cell (S. cerevisiae) as the biological factory to produce targeted products. Synthetic biology is the process which applying engineering principle to biological process.
Framework principle;
1. use part (genetic material - promoter and gene)
2. assembly (in the very old day - it was hard to assembly just one RXN - right now, the method has been improved which you can assemble so many fragments just one RXN tube) - he mentioned that the obstacle on this step has been solved.
3. testing the assemble systems
4. learning the phenotypes
Loop 3-4 becomes the major part of synthetic biology now.
He gave the example on the antibiotic production (penicillin) using synthetic biology (in yeast cell). The major points that I have learned are fine-tuning of each promoter in each gene which involves in penicillin production. He mentioned that his postdoc constructs like "2000" constructs within a single day to find the right balance of production! (Each step requires time and protein amounts differently) - Check out the publication.
Another example is a GPCR-based sensor which can be used as a glucose sensor - Check out the publication.
There is the website which dedicates to the yeast synthetic biology; http://syntheticyeastresource.com/
It is amazing that he and his team can assembly the genetic materials up to 670 kb and replace part of chromosome 16 - each gene will be flanked by loxP and plus adding the tag to tag the progress - then he introduces the product sensor plasmid to measure the product upon the induction of Cre. Then, he sorts out the dynamics of genetic events (through sequencing) that have been occur during product production. With the technology of CRISPR/Cas - his team would like to genetically engineer some genes which could enhance the ability to produce the product.
My curiosity for this case is that how the synthetic biology could reduce the diversity of naturally occurring genetic mutation? Some particular products, I am pretty sure will interfere with the genetic material within the cells (causing cell stress - if they don't design defense mechanism for metabolic overload to preserve the cell survival), therefore, the genetic material won't be the same and the QC won't pass. As a result, upscale would be hard. He introduced the idea which we can let the cell growing in a certain density first and then inducing them to produce the product.
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