Production of industrial aromatic chemicals from renewable resources could provide a competitive alternative to traditional chemical synthesis routes.  In this presentation the engineering of microorganisms for production of p-hydroxycinnamic acid (pHCA) and p-hydroxystyrene (pHS) from glucose will be described.  The initial process concept was demonstrated using an E. coli strain overexpressing both a fungal phenylalanine/tyrosine ammonia lyase (PAL) and a bacterial pHCA decarboxylase (pdc) gene. This organism converted glucose to pHS. To mitigate product toxicity to the production host the pHCA and pHS production steps were decoupled from tyrosine production. The final process consists of a fermentation step to convert glucose to tyrosine using a tyrosine overproducing E. coli strain. This is followed by a single biotransformation step to deaminate tyrosine to pHCA through immobilized E. coli cells overexpressing the PAL gene. Finally, chemical decarboxylation of pHCA produces pHS. This multifaceted approach, integrating biology, chemistry and engineering, has allowed development of an economical process at scales suitable for industrial applications.