October 2 - 7, 2011 Synthetic Biology of Antibiotic Production
Sant Feliu de Guixols, Spain Further information
The European Science Foundation (ESF) in partnership with EMBO is organising this conference on Synthetic Biology of Antibiotic Production. This conference will focus on the advancement of synthetic biology, especially its application in the field of antibiotic production in filamentous fungi and actinomycete bacteria, including the implementation and modification of complex biosynthesis pathway modules in existing and new production hosts. Antibiotics production is regulated by complex networks and involves intricate multi-step biosynthetic machineries, as well as major reorganization of primary metabolic fluxes to redirect cellular metabolic resources towards their biosynthesis. The urgent need for new antibiotics caused by the accelerating emergence of multi-drug resistant pathogens worldwide has led to a strong interest in the research community for decidedly novel approaches, collectively referred to as Synthetic Biology. Given the exquisitely modular nature of antibiotics biosynthesis in microorganisms and the advanced state of knowledge on it, the biotechnological manipulation of antibiotic production can be envisaged as one of the most promising first concrete industrial application domain of synthetic biology concepts. For this potential to be realized, it is critical to bring together the highly interdisciplinary community that has recently started investigating various aspects of the synthetic biology of antibiotic production. This community includes people from such diverse disciplines as metagenomics, combinatorial biochemistry, mathematical and computational modelling, cell engineering, molecular cell biology and biotechnology, and many more, both from academia and the biotechnology industry. The aim of this conference is to facilitate the indispensable mutual communication between researchers from these disciplines in a setting that stimulates the intense exchange of both fundamental knowledge and technical advancement. At the same time, it is a major opportunity to evoke broader awareness and interest in synthetic biology concepts in the microbiology community, which would not be reached by general synthetic biology conferences.
Suggested reading: | Emerging Trends in Antibacterial Discovery: Answering the Call to Arms