Reducing fossil fuels dependency. According to many analysts, biotechnology (including white or green biotechnology and synthetic biology) is the key to a sustainable eco-friendly bioindustry. Biotechnology enables the use of biomass instead of fossil oil and gas feedstock to make chemicals, energy and materials. By its focus on use and reuse of biomass feedstocks, white biotechnology has the potential to diminish emissions, improve energy security, increase farmers incomes, promote rural development and stimulate sustainability in industry. White biotechnology claims to produce existing and new products in a cost-competitive way via the lower consumption of raw materials, lower investment costs, lower energy demand and lower disposal costs due to less hazardous emissions. The application of white biotechnology results in cleaner processes with minimum waste generation and energy use, and is a focus that is rapidly gaining global priority on the agendas of those in industry, government, academia and NGOs.
The goal of this project is to establish a Platform for Automated Yeast Genome Engineering (PAYGE) to greatly accelerate the development of industrial microbial catalysts. Accelerated strain development will open up avenues for commercialization of microbial catalysts that will reduce the impact on our ecosystems as we harvest and transform natural resources. Hence, this proposal is highly timely and provides a valuable opportunity to develop a platform that will be used to leverage our current large-scale research project and as leverage for future Génome Québec and Genome Canada applications.