Synthetic bacterial ecosystems

Eugenio Cinquemani, Hans Geiselmann, Hidde de Jong, Aline Marguet

Synthetically engineered microbial communities attract increasing attention for fundamental research as well as for biotechnological applications. Consortia of a small number of species can be grown in the laboratory more easily than complex natural communities, and they enable a precise understanding and characterization of the symbiotic interactions that are found in natural environments. Furthermore, it is now demonstrated that, leveraging suitable interactions, it is possible to use synthetic consortia to outperform individual species in bioprocesses ranging from industrial synthesis of molecules for medical applications to environmental detoxification.

Together with collaborators, we investigate fundamental metabolic interactions by means of synthetically generated consortia of modified E.coli strains, as well as biotechnological applications of algal-bacterial consortia. Thanks to optogenetics, we also explore dynamic control of consortium dynamics for the optimization of growth, co-existence and biosynthetic processes.