ESP Biography

Cells have evolved over billions of years to highly specialized functions. We can now take advantage of what nature has evolved to engineer living factories: cells that can produce fuels, chemicals, and building materials from very simple and "green" natural resources. This course will cover methods for synthetic biology, methods for engineering new metabolic pathways, and real-world applications. Additionally, students will have the opportunity to run an in-class experiment testing the effects of various metabolic engineering and synthetic biology methods on production of interesting products.

Cells have evolved over millions of years to highly specialized functions, but all cells require external resources to use as the building blocks for their growth and survival. Using the cells’ own machinery, i.e. metabolic pathways, we can now engineer cells to not only grow better, but to grow better and make specialized chemical and biological products. This course will cover the mechanisms of cell growth and maintenance, methods for synthetic biology, methods for engineering new metabolic pathways, and real-world applications. Additionally, students will have the opportunity to run an in class experiment testing the effects of various metabolic engineering and synthetic biology methods on production of novel compounds.