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Metabolic Engineering of Industrial Microorganisms

BPE34306

About this course

Synthetic biology techniques are powerful and make rigorous modification of microorganisms possible and - omics techniques give us means to determine what is going on in a microorganism. So we have many tools to modify and monitor microorganisms and to use them for optimizing microbial production of chemicals. These methods however do not help us determining HOW the metabolism should be changed to optimize product formation. That's the topic of this course. The course consist of 3 parts: how product formation is linked to metabolism, how metabolism can be changed, and modeling of metabolic fluxes. This will be linked to challenges posed by reactor engineering. E. coli and S. cerevisiae will be used as industrial microorganisms, making products like 1,3-butanediol, succinic acid and triacylglycerides.

Learning outcomes

  • Explain how product formation is linked to microbial metabolism

  • Design and optimize product pathways

  • Improve and extent a metabolic model and evaluate the product pathway with the model

  • Explain how metabolic engineering is linked to reactor engineering

Assessment method

  • Written test with open questions (75%)
  • Assignment report (25%) Group size: 4-6 students. Late submissions can be handed in at the next resit. The report is about the the metabolic design of converting glucose or methanol into a certain product, following the 10 steps taught, including using a genome scale metabolic model. For the 10 steps 0.35 point is rewarded for every good answer, and 0,35 points for every good discussion. The results obtained for the model can be awarded by 1 point max, a good discussion too. Finally a maximum of 1 point can be given for a good conclusion of the whole report.

Prior knowledge

BPE22306 Basic Cell Factory Design and MIB20306 Microbial Physiology or similar courses.

Resources

  • Study material consisting of lectures and articles will become available in Brightspace.

Additional information

course
6 ECTS
  • Level
    master
  • Mode of instruction
    on campus
If anything remains unclear, please check the FAQ of Wageningen University.

Starting dates

  • 9 Feb 2026

    ends 8 Mar 2026

    LanguageEnglish
    Term *P4
    Period 4 whole day
    Register before 11 Jan, 23:59
These offerings are valid for students of TU Eindhoven