报告人：Prof. Jens Nielsen, Head of Division of Systems and Synthetic Biology, Director of the Life Science Engineering Area of Advance, Chalmers University of Technology, Sweden.　　

　　报告题目: Metabolic Engineering of Yeast　　

　　报告时间：10月13日(周四) 11:00　　

　　报告地点：中国科学院天津工业生物技术研究所B301阶梯教室　　

　　报告摘要：Metabolic Engineering relies on the Design-Build-Test cycle. This cycle includes technologies like mathematical modeling of metabolism, genome editing and advanced tools for phenotypic characterization. In recent years there have been advances in several of these technologies, which has enabled faster development of metabolically engineered strains that can be used for production of fuels and chemicals.　　

　　The yeast Saccharomyces cerevisiae is widely used for production of fuels, chemicals, pharmaceuticals and materials. Through metabolic engineering of this yeast a number of novel industrial processes have been developed over the last 10 years. Besides its wide industrial use, S. cerevisiae also serves as an eukaryal model organism, and many systems biology tools have therefore been developed for this organism. These tools can be used for detailed phenotypic characterization as well as for metabolic design.　　

　　In this lecture it will be demonstrated how the Design-Build-Test cycle of Metabolic Engineering has allowed for development of yeast cell factories for production of a range of different fuels and chemicals. Some examples of different technologies will be presented together with examples of metabolic engineering designs, in particular for development of platform strains that can be used for production of a fatty acid derived products, e.g. fatty alcohols and alkanes. It will be argued that with advancement in genome-editing technologies and novel methods for rapid phenotypic screening, advancement in the field is hampered by our design abilities, i.e. to predict genotype-phenotype connections. For this genome-scale metabolic models is a strong technology, and in the presentation recent advancements in mathematical modeling for cell factory design will be presented. Finally, the presentation will also demonstrate how the Design-Build-Test cycle can be expanded to incorporate adaptive laboratory evolution to identify targets for engineering complex traits, such as improved tolerance to toxic metabolites like elevated temperatures or low pH.　　

　　报告人简介：Jens Nielsen has an MSc degree in Chemical Engineering and a PhD degree (1989) in Biochemical Engineering from the Danish Technical University (DTU), and after that established his independent research group and was appointed full Professor there in 1998. He was Fulbright visiting professor at MIT in 1995-1996. At DTU he founded and directed Center for Microbial Biotechnology. In 2008 he was recruited as Professor and Director to Chalmers University of Technology, Sweden, where he is currently directing a research group of more than 50 people. At Chalmers he established the Area of Advance Life Science Engineering, a cross departmental strategic research initiative and was founding Head of the Department of Biology and Biological Engineering, which now encompass more than 170 people. 　　

　　Jens Nielsen has published so far more than 550 papers that have been cited more than 18,000 times (current H-factor 67), co-authored more than 40 books and he is inventor of more than 50 patents. He was identified by Thompson Reuter as a highly cited researcher in 2015.　　

　　Jens Nielsen founded Fluxome A/S that raised more than M20EUR in venture capital. This company metabolically engineered yeast for production of resveratrol and used this yeast for commercial production of this compound. This process was acquired by the company Evolva. Jens Nielsen has founded several other biotech companies, including Metabogen AB and Biopetrolia AB, and he has served in the scientific advisory board of a range of different biotech companies in the USA and Europe.　　

　　Jens Nielsen has received numerous Danish and international awards including the Villum Kann Rasmussen’s Årslegat, Merck Award for Metabolic Engineering, Amgen Award for Biochemical Engineering, Nature Mentor Award, the Gaden Award, the Norblad-Ekstrand gold medal and the Novozymes Prize. He is member of several academies, including the National Academy of Engineering in USA, the Royal Swedish Academy of Science, the Royal Danish Academy of Science and Letters, the Royal Swedish Academy of Engineering Sciences and the American Academy of Microbiology. He is a founding president of the International Metabolic Engineering Society.