29^th European Biotechnology Congress

Metabolic Engineering

Metabolic engineering is the use of genetic engineering to optimize the metabolism of an organism. It involves the introduction of new or recombinant genes or genetic circuits into host cell genomes in order to optimize or introduce new metabolic pathways. It can involve the optimization of existing biochemical pathways or the introduction of new pathway components, most commonly in bacteria, yeast or plants, with the goal of high-yield production of specific metabolites for medicine or biotechnology. Metabolic engineering is essentially utilizes E. coli or other approachable microorganisms into efficient “factories”, optimized to produce a desired biomolecule with higher yield and purity than non-genetically engineered organisms.