Research Groups

Mammalian Biology: Malaria

Research Interests and Description

Staff Research Scientist: Syed Shams Yazdani

Research Interests

Metabolic engineering, biofuels, lignocellulosic biomass.

Description of Research

The focus of the group is to develop economical processes for the production of biofuels from renewable resources. Earlier collaboration with the Rice University, Houston, USA, showed the utility of metabolic engineering to engineer bacteria that can efficiently convert glycerin, an industrial waste, into bioethanol. We now propose to engineer bacteria to convert lignocellulosic biomass into bioethanol and higher chain length alcohol. Our approach to make the process for biofuel production economical is by integrating two major events, i.e. conversion of cellulose and hemicellulose to sugars, and fermentation of sugars to alcohol, in a single microorganism. Using a synthetic biology technique, the natural cellulase producer will be engineered for biofuel production by importing the alcohol fermentation pathway. We have identified a novel cellulase producer for this work and have purified and characterized a highly active cellulase enzyme. In our second approach, a laboratory bacterium, Escherichia coli, will be used to express a number of cellulase enzymes in a synthetic operon to enable utilization of cellulose and production of ethanol directly from pre-treated lignicellulose. E. coli will further be engineered to produce ethanol as a major metabolic product by deleting genes responsible for competing co-products. Ethanol and higher chain alcohols are reduced compounds that need an additional pool of reducing equivalents for high yields. Our engineering effort also addresses this issue. In additional to ethanol, butanol is also a focus of our study and efforts are underway to achieve high yield and productivity of butanol by metabolic engineering.

Recent Publications

Yazdani, S.S., Gonzalez, R. 2008. Engineering Escherichia coli for the efficient conversion of glycerol to ethanol and co-products. Metabolic Engineering. Metabolic Engineering 10, 340-351

Gonzalez, R., Murarka, A., Dharmadi, Y., Yazdani, S.S. 2008. A new model for the anaerobic fermentation of glycerol in enteric bacteria: trunk and auxiliary pathways in Escherichia coli. Metabolic Engineering 10, 234-245

Murarka, A., Dharmadi, Y., Yazdani, S.S., Gonzalez, R. 2008. Fermentative utilization of glycerol by Escherichia coli and its implications for the production of fuels and chemicals. Appl. Environ. Microbiol. 74, 1124-1135

Moreno, A., Caro-Aguilar, I., Yazdani, S.S., Shakri, A.R., Lapp, S., Strobert, E., McClure, H., Chitnis, C.E., Galinski, M.R. 2008. Preclinical assessment of the receptor-binding domain of Plasmodium vivax Duffy-binding protein as a vaccine candidate in rhesus macaques. Vaccine 26, 4338-4344

Yazdani, S.S., Gonzalez, R. 2007. Anaerobic fermentation of glycerol: a path to economic viability for the biofuels industry. Curr Opin Biotechnol.18, 213-219