S99: Metabolic Engineering of Cyanobacteria: Application of Transformational Technologies to Algae Biofuel Production

Targeted Growth Inc. (TGI) is a crop biotechnology company focused on developing products for the energy and agricultural industries.  TGI’s synthetic biology program is pursuing an algal biofuel strategy centered on the metabolic engineering of genetically pliable cyanobacteria.  TGI is leveraging the transformational power of modern systems biology to rewire metabolic circuits of cyanobacteria to enable production of large quantities of lipid directly from carbon dioxide and light.  TGI is employing the power of genome scale phenotypic screens, transcriptomics, and metabolomics to expedite the evolution of new or enhanced traits. TGI is combining these systems biology approaches with targeted gene disruption and engineering of novel regulatory modules for construction of synthetic gene circuits.  Integration of these approaches allows TGI to rapidly develop and customize metabolic pathways for production of lipid biofuel feedstocks and value-added specialty chemicals.  A description of how TGI is applying these methods to engineer enhanced lipid production in cyanobacteria will be presented.