Smart Biomanufacturing of Green Chemicals

Synthetic biology has the potential of biomanufacturing >60% of chemicals, pharmaceuticals, fuels, natural products, and raw materials used in industry; in the next 10-20 years, the market potential of biomanufacturing will exceed trillions of dollars per year. But currently only about 6% of chemicals and fuels are biosynthesized. Professor Zeng has over 35 years of research experience in industrial biotechnology. Among others, his group recently developed an original All-in-One electrode and bioreactor for in-situ water electrolysis and biosynthesis, which has been successfully applied to the biosynthesis of diols and fatty acids and to CO2 biotransformation. Combing bioprocess engineering with C1-C3 synthetic biology our goal is to use generative energy (sunlight, electricity) and the atmosphere (CO2, nitrogen, and water) for biosynthesis, a key area of importance for sustainable development of human society.

Selected literature
1. Y. Liu, W. Wang, AP Zeng (2022) Biosynthesizing structurally diverse diols via a general route combining oxidative and reductive formations of OH-groups. Nature Communications. 10.1038/s41467-022-29216-5.
2. AP Zeng (2019) New bioproduction systems for chemicals: Needs and new development. Biotechnol. Adv. 37, 508-518. DOI: 10.1016/j.biotechadv.2019.01.00