报告人简介

Ramon Gonzale博士，美国莱斯大学（Rice University）、南佛罗里达大学（USF）终身教授，长期从事生物化工、化学品合成、合成生物学、代谢工程等研究方向。2002年至今，他先后在美国Iowa State University，Rice University及University of South Florida担任助理教授、副教授、教授，中心主任等职位。2012-2015年担任美国能源部先进能源研究计划署(ARPA-E)项目主管，主导项目总金额超过数千万美元。Ramon Gonzalez曾以第一、通讯作者发表一篇Science、两篇Nature和NCS子刊数篇，在国际顶级杂志发表SCI论文近百篇，国际授权专利20项，文章引用次数约5800次，H-index：34。Gonzale教授担任包括Science，Applied & Environmental Microbiology等期刊的编委。曾荣获AIChE大会报告奖， SDA/NBB创新研究奖和NSF CAREER奖等荣誉。

报告简介

One-carbon (C1) compounds, including carbon dioxide, carbon monoxide, formate, and methane, are attractive feedstocks for fuel and chemical production due to their availability and sustainability. However, the efficient and economical utilization of these feedstocks can be challenging for traditional chemical processes due, in part, to their diffuse nature. In this talk, we will discuss our recent efforts to engineer and implement biological C1 utilization for chemical production. We have leveraged the existing C1-utilization pathways of native methanotrophMethylomicrobium buryatensefor the production of industrially relevant products such as lactate. We also engineered a synthetic metabolic pathway for C1 conversion to multi-carbon products that is distinctive from and orthogonal to any known metabolic network. This C1 elongation pathway is enabled by our discovery that an enzyme involved in mammalian α-oxidation (2-hydroxyacyl-CoA lyase, HACL) can catalyze the condensation of formyl-CoA, an activated C1 molecule, with aldehydes of varying chain lengths. Our work establishes the potential for biotechnological applications of HACL, which includes both bioconversion of C1 feedstocks as well as synthetic methylotrophy and autotrophy.