An Open Synthetic Biology Toolkit for Engineering Reliable Genetic Circuits in Microbes in Soil
Profile
An Open Synthetic Biology Toolkit for Engineering Reliable Genetic Circuits in Microbes in Soil
PI: Richard M. Murray
Research Team: John P. Marken and Elin M. Larsson
Division of Biology and Biological Engineering
Ecology and Biosphere Engineering Initiative
This project will demonstrate the feasibility of an open-source toolkit for soil synthetic biology, with the goal of bootstrapping a larger effort that would enable the use of engineered microbes to understand and modulate the complex dynamics of the rhizosphere. We will identify and characterize genetically tractable microbes capable of long-term persistence; create a toolbox of genetic parts for gene circuits and pathways in soil conditions; and design, build and test a stimulus-response circuit operating in soil. Long-term applications will include engineering microbial communities to optimize nutrient uptake by plants to improve their survival against environmental hazards such as drought, toxins and pathogens.