Meeting
Times: MWF 3:00PM-3:50PM.,
CHE 2145
Textbook:
“Metabolic Engineering: Principles and Methodologies”, by Gregory
Stephanopoulos, Aristos Aristidou and Jens Nielsen, Academic Press, 1998,
ISDN:0-12-666260-6
Metabolic
engineering (ME) strives to systematically induce biological changes that will
produce desired cellular properties. As such it favors the analysis of
integrated metabolic networks and the use of fluxes to obtain a detailed picture
of cellular physiology. The development of technologies for the measurement of
genome-wide gene expression (DNA microarrays) and cell-wide protein production
(2-dimensional gels and protein chips) data have introduced a new dimension in
biological and biotechnological research. For the first time, physiological data
are complemented to such large extent by information from both the genomic and
proteomic level. The integration of such diverse information is required for the
determination of gene regulation and cellular physiology. Metabolic engineering
can play a key role towards this direction by providing the framework for the
systematic and combined application of the available methodologies in the
elucidation of biological systems in their entirety. In this course, the
principles of ME and the main concepts and methodologies in the metabolic
engineering toolbox in the post-genomic era will be presented. How flux
quantification and gene expression analysis, along with sophisticated
experimental techniques, can be combined to upgrade the content of information
in the physiological and genomic/proteomic data towards the unraveling of
cellular function and regulation will also be discussed. Students will be
exposed to the main challenges of the metabolic engineering science today and
the ongoing discussion on the re-definition of the role of ME 11 years after its
official birth, in the context of quantitative systems biology.
last updated: January 22, 2003
