Application of Synthetic Biology, Nathan Hillson, Ph.D., Joint BioEnergy Institute, DOE

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Rating: 4.8 (3721 reviews)

08/22/19 • 37 min

Synthetic biology shows promise in areas as diverse as food and fuels. Nathan Hillson from the U.S. Department of Energy's (DOE) Joint BioEnergy Institute and his team recently published a paper in ACS Synthetic Biology titled, Parallel Integration and Chromosomal Expansion of Metabolic Pathways.

...synthetic biology is really just kind of a cultural mindset. So, it's looking into biology more from an engineering type of a perspective...more on the use-inspired side of things. - Nathan Hillson

Using synthetic biology to produce fuels has seen a lot of improvements, but while fossil fuels remain relatively inexpensive, that may not make economic sense.

However, it may be competitive in the area of producing materials that can go into flavors and fragrances, or lubricants etc.

In this episode, Tracy talks to Nathan about the process of using synthetic biology to produce materials on a large scale from engineering pathways into bacteria or fungi and testing the optimal mix of pathway components to maximize production.

He talks about overcoming challenges such as strain stability or reduced production from chromosomally integrated pathways.

Finally, Nathan describes the role of the DOE's Agile BioFoundry in developing a common infrastructure on which private companies can then address specific problems.

Using synthetic biology to produce fuels has seen a lot of improvements, but while fossil fuels remain relatively inexpensive, that may not make economic sense.

However, it may be competitive in the area of producing materials that can go into flavors and fragrances, or lubricants etc.

He talks about overcoming challenges such as strain stability or reduced production from chromosomally integrated pathways.

Finally, Nathan describes the role of the DOE's Agile BioFoundry in developing a common infrastructure on which private companies can then address specific problems.

Previous Episode

T Cell Stemness, Suman Kumar Vodnala, Ph.D., National Cancer Institute

Cell-based therapies against cancer are becoming more common. Many of those rely on manipulation of T-cells. Is it possible to select a population of T-cells that are more vigorous and better at killing tumor cells?

In this episode, Tracy interviews Suman Vodnala about inducing "stemness" in T-cells to make them perform better in terms of proliferation, persistence and effectiveness. This preserves the potential of the T-cell to do its job. These findings were published in a recent issue of Science.

While this can be done pharmacologically, Suman Kumar Vodnala, Ph.D., National Cancer Institute, describes how manipulating specific ions (potassium) in the growth medium can have a similar effect.

Suman and Tracy also discuss other ways in which T-cells might be kept alive longer.

Next Episode

TIL Frequency & Tumor Reactivity? Anna Pasetto, Ph.D., Karolinska Institutet

There is already some evidence that successful immunotherapy is probably connected with reactivity against neo-antigens. But can we identify a population of T-cells whose receptors are specific to those antigens and take further advantage of those to create more effective immunotherapies for individuals?

Anna Pasetto is the first author on a recent publication in Cancer Immunology Research titled Tumor and Neo-Antigen Reactive T-cell Receptors Can be Identified Based on their Frequency in Fresh Tumor.

She and her co-authors hypothesized that the predominant clonotypes within a population of T-cells may indicate its tumor reactivity.

Anna describes for Tracy the strategy they used to identify the candidate clonotypes using deep sequencing of TCRB, single cell PCR and statistical analysis in figuring out which alpha chain was paired with which beta chain in the predominant receptor class.

This research is promising for increasing the effectiveness of cell based immuno-therapies.