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Dr Frank Baganz NAF award with Dr Jian Hao November 2018

22 November 2018

Frank has supported a successful bid for a NAF for Dr Jian Hao for a grant of £95,600 establishing “Combined engineering and biological approaches to improve the efficiency of isobutanol production” build a new international collaboration in the area of industrial biotechnology.

Dr Frank Baganz Dr Jin Hao

To meet the social challenge of improving the environment and climate, bio-chemical production is seen as a promising alternative to petrochemical production. Considerable progress in biotechnology has been made in the last decade to expand the spectrum of chemicals that can be produced by biological routes. Isobutanol is an important chemical that has many applications. It can be used as a new biofuel or as an industrial solvent. However, the biological route to isobutanol production share disadvantages with most bioprocesses, such as low yield, low titre and low productivity. These disadvantages result in a high financial burden and hampered the industrialization of this process. The disadvantages of the bioprocess are caused by many factors, and the complex cell metabolism and product toxicity are two critical aspects. Here biological and engineering approaches will be combined to improve the efficiency of isobutanol production by Klebsiella pneumoniae. Many cellular pathways reduce the yield and productivity of isobutanol. Biological approaches to block or reduce the flow of carbon to unwanted by-products and enhance the flow to isobutanol synthesis in the cell will be applied. Isobutanol is toxic and a high concentration of isobutanol inhibits the activity of the cell. Therefore engineering approaches for removal of isobutanol during the process will be developed. By combining these two approaches the overall efficiency of isobutanol production by biological route will be improved.