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SUMMARY:Understanding/engineering cell and community metabolism - Prof. Or
 kun Soyer\, Life Sciences\, University of Warwick
DTSTART:20180316T160000Z
DTEND:20180316T170000Z
UID:TALK94384@talks.cam.ac.uk
CONTACT:Lorenzo Di Michele
DESCRIPTION:The vision of synthetic biology to engineer biology using pred
 ictive models and high-throughput approaches. While this vision statement 
 is very broad\, synthetic biology efforts to date mostly focus on genetic 
 circuit design in model organisms. I will present a different approach\, w
 here we combine engineering and natural principles towards creating multi-
 species microbial ecosystems. These so-called synthetic microbial communit
 ies can allow harvesting the full functional potential of the microbial wo
 rld\, leading to novel applications such as artificial gut\, synthetic soi
 l\, waste-to-value conversion\, and ecosystem functions in space missions.
  They can also act as model systems for understanding microbial interactio
 ns and ecology.\nTo successfully design synthetic microbial communities co
 mposed of multiple microbial species that are biochemically and industrial
 ly relevant\, we first need to establish the design principles governing m
 icrobial interactions and develop the experimental tools for their charact
 erisation and manipulation. Here\, I will describe our ongoing efforts in 
 discovering the reasons for metabolic interactions among microbes. I will 
 argue that these metabolic interactions can be understood as an emergent p
 roperty of the biochemical environment and associated thermodynamics withi
 n a multi-species system. Particularly\, results from our recent research 
 has shown that the thermodynamic basis of microbial growth can lead to co-
 existence\, even under conditions that are kinetically predicted to lead t
 o competition-driven exclusion. This thermodynamic inhibition can have sig
 nificant consequences for the engineering of multi-species system. \nI wil
 l illustrate these points in the context of experimental systems that we a
 re developing in our group\, where we aim to establish key metabolic inter
 action motifs among biochemically and biotechnologically relevant microbes
  and extending to inter-kingdom interactions with fungi and plants.
LOCATION:Small Lecture Theatre\, Cavendish Laboratory
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