This presentation will cover the application of Genomatica’s technology platform to design and engineer a microorganism capable of producing this chemical from carbohydrate for the first time. The Biopathway Predictor algorithm was employed to elucidate all possible routes to BDO from central metabolites, and the most favorable pathway chosen. We then used the OptKnock methodology to engineer host metabolism, identifying and implementing gene deletions that couple product formation to growth. Evolutionary engineering is a complementary approach using controlled selection pressure to optimize strain fitness and growth following genetic manipulations. Throughout the host and pathway construction process, metabolic models facilitated data analysis to evaluate performance and find targets for further rounds of strain engineering. Our results clearly demonstrate commercialization potential of this breakthrough biochemical process, and more generally that our novel approach is expediting the metabolic engineering of superior industrial organisms for low-cost chemical production.