The Biggs Lab focuses on improving sustainability through microbial engineering (monoculture and microbial communities). We look to build on traditional metabolic engineering by incorporating underutilized carbon streams, particularly those presently treated as waste.
Our laboratory is especially interested in profiling novel microbes, specifically for capabilities related to waste metabolism and metabolic engineering. Moreover, we look to combine the knowledge we gain in microbial metabolism profiling with data from microbial interactions studies to design communities of microbes with enhanced traits for waste recovery.
As we identify new species with desirable traits, we develop genetic tools to enable engineering of these new host systems. This includes expanding our existing work with the lignin monomer consuming Acinetobacter baylyi ADP1.
Within this context, we are also interested in leveraging waste feedstocks as “new” starting point metabolites for metabolic engineering and upgrading. We look to design novel biochemical pathways to target product molecules, including leveraging enzyme promiscuity.
Lastly, we collaborate with industrial partners to tackle key issues related to scaling metabolic engineering processes.