PhD Defence Roberto Ferro

It is with great delight we announce the PhD defence of Roberto Ferro.

All are welcome!

Title: Protein production strategies for Grampositive bacteria: an approach for cell factories optimization

Abstract: Humans have exploited microbes for centuries to produce cheese, beer and bread. Bacteria are not only part of the biosphere, but they are also part of the flora in our guts and fundamental for life as we know it. The huge potential of microbes is already harnessed today by using their microbial cells as production facilities to produce fuels, chemicals, enzyme for detergents and pharmaceutical proteins such as insulin. This study explores the potential of two bacteria commonly used in food fermentations, namely Lactococcus lactis and Bacillus subtilis, to produce proteins for the biotech industry. A simple and inexpensive approach to create a growth based selection system that increases protein production is presented. The system can pick high protein producers out of a collection of protein producing variants, by using a coupling device that ties expression of the gene of interest to an antibiotic resistance gene. The coupling mechanism is further elucidated in a patent application, which reports the development of multiple strength levels for the coupling device and demonstrate its viability in Gram-negative bacteria (Escherichia coli and Pseudomonas putida). Together, the results reported in this PhD project expand the knowledge on Gram-positive cell factories and introduce a new tool that will likely benefit the optimization of future ones. Coming studies will build on the established platform and provide further insight in protein production.

Supervisors:
Professor Dr. Birger Lindberg Møller, KU
Senior Scientist Morten Nørholm, DTU

Assessment committee:
Professor Poul Erik Jensen (Chair)
Associated Professor Mogens Kilstrup, DTU
Senior Scientist Christine Oswald, Heptares Therapeutics

Reception afterwards in the 117 meeting rooms