20.109(F10):Metabolic Engineering Research

Initial Research Ideas

 * Enhance the hydrocarbon metabolic pathway in microorganisms.


 * Certain bacteria can metabolize hydrocarbons (for example, oil). We want to enhance these metabolic pathways so that these bacteria can be used for metabolizing hydrocarbons for industrial purposes (for example: to clean up oil spills and/ or other wastes and pollutants). We will research available methods of enhancing metabolic systems, and suggest further research in the application of those methods that seem particularly promising in their application to these bacterial systems.


 * We also imagine an engineered system in which the bacteria use these hydrocarbon wastes as a fuel source to produce a useful product. This product can either be useful for industrial purposes (ie: to produce therapeutics or chemicals), or it can be useful for recycling purposes or "green" purposes. For example: we can engineer these bacteria to live symbiotically with certain plants, so that the bacteria metabolize wastes into materials useful for plant growth and development (these bacteria and plants can be useful in land fills, for example).