Regulatory Modeling

Programming biosystems capable of novel bioprocesses

Our biodesign tools and capabilities generate opportunities for understanding, directing, and optimizing biosynthetic pathways in scaled-up processes for integrated biomanufacturing.

Optimizing biological systems for industrial bioprocesses requires a deep understanding of the bacterial regulatory networks as well as the ability to rationally engineer them to produce desired outputs. 

Microbes are not simply passive consumers of nutrients or merely steady-state systems. Rather they are active participants in their environments, collecting information from their surroundings, processing and using that information to adapt their behavior and optimize survival.

We leverage these regulatory mechanisms for bioengineering processes, allowing us to:

  • Optimize bioproduct production
  • Add programmatic elements to biosynthetic pathways that are sensitive to conditions or timing
  • Mitigate stress responses in microbial systems that might otherwise diminish yield of the desired product

When we connect the information processing and environmental sensing capabilities of living microbes to predictive computational design of regulatory networks, the microbes become fully programmable biosystems capable of bioprocesses that are challenging to achieve through other chemical means. 

See our other Learn capabilities.

Labs:
  • Argonne National Laboratory