Multi-Scale Metabolic Modeling and Engineering Workshop

Virginia Polytechnic Institute And State University, Blacksburg VA

Investigators

Abstract

The Multi-Scale Metabolic Modeling and Engineering Workshop will be held at the Virginia Tech National Capital Region (NCR) campus in Arlington, VA, during August of 2016. This workshop will synthesize the latest academic developments in metabolic engineering into useful and translatable information for the bioprocessing industry. The workshop participants will be a combination of industrial and academic researchers who identify as bioprocess engineers, metabolic engineers, protein engineers, and synthetic biologists. . The application of metabolic engineering methodologies to industrial fermentation can have significant impact on the efficient production of pharmaceuticals, chemicals, and biofuels. The workshop will explore how to better integrate metabolic engineering principles and modeling with industrial bioprocess engineering models through the following topics: 1) Use of SuperPRO Designer to evaluate bioprocess economics and assess the impacts of metabolic engineering on improving and enhancing these bioprocess model predictions, particularly for fermentation co-products; 2) Genome-scale metabolic flux modeling; 3) Development of metabolic engineering strategies through modeling; 4) Techniques for DNA manipulation and assembly along with genome editing; 5) Synthetic circuit design and pathway expression optimization; 6) 13C-based metabolic flux analysis; and 7) Optimizing a metabolic pathway during fermentation, considering reaction kinetics, thermodynamics, and fluid mechanics in a large scale fermenter. The workshop outcomes are also expected to have significant impact on the biofuels industry, particularly for biorefinery operations where both biofuels and valued co-products are made through fermentation processes.