Engineering of Microbial Biosynthetic Pathways

This book provides a comprehensive overview of the basic and advanced metabolic engineering technologies used to generate natural metabolites and industrially important biomolecules.

Metabolic engineering has the potential to produce large quantities of valuable biomolecules in a renewable and sustainable manner by extending or modifying biosynthetic pathways in a wide range of organisms. It has been successfully used to produce chemicals, drugs, enzymes, amino acids, antibiotics, biofuels, and industrially important pharmaceuticals.

The book comprehensively reviews the various metabolites detection, extraction and biosensors and the metabolic engineering of microbial strains for the production of industrially useful enzymes, proteins, organic acids, vitamins and antibiotics, therapeutics, chemicals, and biofuels. It also discusses various genetic engineering and synthetic biology tools for metabolic engineering. In closing, the book discusses ethical, patenting and regulatory issues in the metabolic engineering of microbes. This book is a valuable source not only for beginners in metabolic engineering, but also students, researchers, biotechnology and metabolic engineering based company.

Dr. Vijai Singh is an Associate Professor in the Department of Biosciences, School of Science at Indrashil University, Mehsana, Gujarat, India. He was an Assistant Professor in the Department of Biological Sciences and Biotechnology at Institute of Advanced Research, Gandhinagar India and also an Assistant Professor in the Department of Biotechnology at the Invertis University, Bareilly, India. Prior to this, he was a Postdoctoral Fellow in the Synthetic Biology Group at the Institute of Systems and Synthetic Biology, Paris, France and School of Energy & Chemical Engineering at the Ulsan National Institute of Science and Technology, Ulsan, South Korea. He has received his Ph.D. in Biotechnology (2009) from the National Bureau of Fish Genetic Resources, Uttar Pradesh Technical University, Lucknow, India with a research focus on the development of molecular and immunoassays for diagnostic of Aeromonas hydrophila. He has extensive experience in Synthetic Biology including MAGE, small regulatory RNAs, pathways design, CRISPR-Cas system, and Microfluidics. His research interests are focused on building of a novel biosynthetic pathway for production of medically and industrially important biomolecules. Additionally, his laboratory is working on CRISPR-Cas9 tools for genome editing. He has more than 8 years of research and teaching experience in Synthetic Biology, Microbiology, and Industrial Microbiology. He has published 74 articles, 25 chapters, and 4 books. Also, he serves as a member of editorial board and reviewer of a number of peer-reviewed journals.

Dr. Ajay Kumar Singh is currently working as an Assistant Professor in the Department of Food Process Engineering at Sam Higginbottom University of Agriculture, Technology and Sciences (SHUATS), Allahabad, India. He did his M Tech in Biotechnology in 2004 from the Institute of Engineering and Technology, Lucknow, India, and Ph.D. in Biotechnology from SHUATS, Allahabad, India. He has more than 12 years of research and teaching experience in the field of Microbial Technology, Fermentation and bioprocess technology. His major research focuses on microbial enzyme technology, microbial process technology. He has published 30+ articles.

Dr. Poonam Bhargava is currently working as a scientist in Gujarat Biotechnology Research Centre, Department of Science and Technology, Government of Gujarat, Gujarat, India. Earlier she has worked as a young scientist in the Birla Institute of Scientific Research, Jaipur, India. She did her Ph.D. in Bioscience in 2005 at the Banaras Hindu University, Varanasi, India. Her Ph.D. work included a proteomic analysis of cyanobacterial stress response. Her research interests lie in microbial genomics, proteomics, and metagenomics. She has published 24+ peer-reviewed articles and 8 book chapters. 

Dr. Madhvi Joshi is currently working as Scientist D and Joint Director at Gujarat Biotechnology Research Centre, Department of Science and Technology, Government of Gujarat. She received her Ph.D. in Bioscience in 2011 at Saurashtra University, Rajkot, Gujarat. Her research primarily focuses on translational biotechnological research leading to product/ process/ prototype development. Her major research interest areas include microbial genomics, clinical genomics for rare and inherited diseases and the development of DNA based diagnostics for one health. She has more than 12 years of research experience and guided 11 MPhil/PhD students. She has published 17+ articles in peer-reviewed journals and filed patents. She has been awarded patent for novel bacteriocin from B. subtilis. She is in charge of the microbial repository with 7000+ microbes in GBRC.

Prof. Chaitanya G Joshi presently serves as Director, Gujarat Biotechnology Research Centre, Department of Science and Technology, Government of Gujarat. Earlier, he worked as Professor of Animal Biotechnology at the Anand Agricultural University, Anand, Gujarat. He has completed his Ph.D. in 1995 from Tamil Nadu Veterinary and Animal Science University, Chennai, Tamil Nadu. He has more than 30 years of research experience in microbiology and molecular biology. His research interests lie in animal genomics, metagenomics, and transcriptomics. He has published 150+ articles in peer-reviewed journals, 12 complete genomes, 5 patents, and 1 book. He serves as a member of editorial board and reviewer of a number of peer-reviewed journals.