Chemical Engineering April 2016 - 45

Part 2
Synthetic Biology for
Chemical Production
Rapidly expanding computational power and decreasing costs for DNA sequencing and
synthesis have made synthetic biology tools more accessible to chemical makers
Alexandre
Zanghellini
Arzeda Corp.
In BrIef
ExPANSION OF
FERMENTATION
BREAKINg
FERMENTATION LIMITS
MOORE'S LAW AND
CARLSON CURvES
ThE EMERgENCE OF
DEDICATED " FABS "
DESIgNER
BIOCATALySTS
NEW PAThWAyS
N
ot long ago,
the late former
Apple CEO
Steve Jobs
said, " I think the biggest
innovations of the 21st
century will be at the intersection
of biology and
technology. A new era is
beginning. " Recent developments
in the field of
synthetic biology already
seem to be validating
his prophecy. The U.K.'s
Royal Society (London;
www.royalsociety.org)
describes synthetic biology
as the design and
construction of novel
artificial biological pathways, organisms or
devices, or the redesign of existing natural
biological systems.
With his statement, Jobs was probably reflecting,
in his later days, on the impact of
this convergence between technology and
biology specifically on human health. But
other domains of human activity are poised
to be equally impacted by synthetic biology
(Figure 1). This includes our ability to sustainably
produce the molecules that make up
our chemicals, materials and drugs. DNA
is commonly viewed as the " code, " or software,
of life. Now, an equally important view
is the emerging ability of computer software
to enable us to engineer living systems with
unprecedented precision and speed.
Expansion of fermentation
The future of chemicals lies in fermentation,
but it has not yet been fully realized. It has
long been hypothesized that fermentation
could ultimately replace conventional synthetic
chemistry for the production of chemicals.
After all, fermentation hosts, such as
yeast, are actually miniature cell factories,
44
Figure 1. Synthetic biology tools could help the CPI sustainably produce many chemicals
for which natural pathways do not already exist
able to catalyze numerous complex chemical
reactions in a very small volume. Advantages
of using such cell factories for industrial processes
are many. Complex chemistry can
be catalyzed under mild, low-energy conditions,
contrary to most industrial chemical
processes. Further, whereas conventional
chemical processes usually start from nonrenewable
resources (petroleum, gas or
coal), fermentation processes typically convert
plant residues (biomass) or other renewable
resources into ultimately the same product,
making it sustainable.
Perhaps even more importantly for the
chemical process industries (CPI), fermentation
can dramatically reduce the number of
process steps, as well as operational costs
and capital requirements, for a manufacturing
plant. Most industrial chemical processes
start from relatively simple petroleum-based
chemical building blocks (hydrocarbons with
a limited number of functional groups) and
catalytically convert them into more complex
fine and specialty chemicals. This typically requires
multiple steps, each involving catalysis,
extraction, purification and recycling, resulting
in complex and expensive plants. The rapid
ChemiCal engineering www.Chemengonline.Com april 2016
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Chemical Engineering April 2016

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