Synthetic biology was first discovered due to the discovery of some switches in gene regulation, so it began to explore whether it is possible to regulate gene expression and control biological growth by changing chromosomes. As early as 2006, international researchers carried out related research on the most widely used microorganism in industrial production of Saccharomyces cerevisiae, among which there are many Chinese scientists.
Professors Junbiao Dai, Deputy Director of the Institute of Synthetic Biology, SIAT, is one of them. As one of the main participating teams of the international cooperation project "Synthetic Yeast Genome Project (Sc2.0)", In 2017,Junbiao Dai's team successfully completed the artificial synthesis of the longest chromosome (synthetic chromosome 12) in yeast and was considered a milestone in synthetic biology.
Many people will ask, how does this difficult, ten-year-old or even seemingly boring research persist? The answer is love. Passion for love makes this seemingly boring job an interesting exploration, and also turns this long road into a journey of war and courage.
"I have been exposed to yeast since I read the Ph.D., and I always find it very interesting." Dai Junbiao said, "The two goals we insist on are scientific goal, and industrial goal."
By designing an induction system that allows genes to be rearranged, Junbiao Dai's team allowed the evolution of traits that takes a long time (even hundreds of millions of years) in nature to complete in just a few days, thereby screening The production of useful genetic material and cells enables the optimization of exogenous metabolic pathways, the adaptation of chassis cells, and the improvement of strain tolerance, which greatly improves the yield of target products.
