Antifoams are often added to bioprocesses with little knowledge of their impact on the cells or product. However, it is known that certain antifoams can affect the growth rates of both prokaryotic and eukaryotic organisms in addition to changing surface…

Directed evolution has become a well-established tool for improving proteins and biological systems. A critical aspect of directed evolution is the selection of a suitable host organism for achieving functional expression of the target gene. To date, most directed evolution…

This mini-review discusses the current state of experimental and computational microbial consortia engineering with a focus on cellular factories. A discussion of promising ecological theories central to community resource usage is presented to facilitate interpretation of consortial designs. Recent case…

A general strategy for the isolation of catalysts for given chemical reactions was designed. A first link between genes and their corresponding proteins was established by phage display: using Darwin’s principles on evolution based on selection and amplification, rare protein…

Technological developments over the past century have made microbes the work-horses of large scale industrial production processes. Current efforts focus on the metabolic engineering of microbial strains to produce high levels of desirable end-products. The arsenal of the contemporary metabolic…

Arthrospira are attractive candidates to serve as cell factories for production of many valuable compounds useful for food, feed, fuel and pharmaceutical industries. In connection with the development of sustainable bioprocessing, it is a challenge to design and develop efficient…

The hemoglobin (VHb) from Vitreoscilla was the first bacterial hemoglobin discovered.  Its structure and function have been extensively investigated, and engineering of a wide variety of heterologous organisms to express VHb has been performed to increase their growth and productivity. …

Cellulose waste biomass is the most abundant and attractive substrate for "biorefinery strategies" that are aimed to produce high-value products (e.g. solvents, fuels, building blocks) by economically and environmentally sustainable fermentation processes. However, cellulose is highly recalcitrant to biodegradation and…

The bacterial periplasm is of special interest whenever cell factories are designed and engineered. Recombinantely produced proteins are targeted to the periplasmic space of Gram negative bacteria to take advantage of the authentic N-termini, disulfide bridge formation and easy accessibility…

Metabolic Engineering has undertaken a rapid transformation in the last ten years making real progress towards the production of a wide range of molecules and fine chemicals using a designed cellular host. However, the maximization of product yields through pathway…