PROMOTING SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY BETWEEN INDIA AND THE U.S.
Molecular Biology
University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
Our laboratory is interested in the discovery, characterization, and engineering of new biosynthetic pathways involved in natural product biosynthesis. For example, several biosynthetic pathways and enzymes such as type I polyketide synthases and type III polyketide synthases have been characterized and engineered. In addition, we have been characterizing and engineering a new class of natural products – phosphonic acids, many of which show antimicrobial, anticancer, and antifungal and herbicidal activities. More importantly, we developed a powerful synthetic biology approach, so-called DNA assembler, for rapid construction of large DNA molecules in yeast. Currently, a major focus in our laboratory is to develop novel synthetic biology strategies to activate those cryptic biosynthetic pathways. Our laboratory has been working on several projects related to bioenergy research. For example, we are using metabolic engineering and synthetic biology approaches to engineer a recombinant yeast strain that can utilize C5/C6 sugars simultaneously. We discovered the first naturally-occurring xylose-specific transporters(19) and arabinose specific transporters.Currently, we are interested in engineering yeast strains capable of producing advanced biofuels such as n-butanol, alkanes, and biodiesels.