Synthetic Biochemistry for Medicine and Crop Protection
The Max Planck Society–Chinese Academy of Sciences Center for Synthetic Biochemistry aims to unlock the potential of natural products from microorganisms for medicine, crop protection, and other applications
To this end, the center brings together the expertise of the Max Planck Institute for Terrestrial Microbiology in Marburg and the Shenzhen Institutes of Advanced Technology of the Chinese Academy of Sciences in Shenzhen. At the heart of the collaboration are fundamental questions in synthetic biochemistry: How can new biosynthetic pathways for these compounds be discovered, and how can they be combined and reprogrammed to produce previously unknown bioactive molecules?
Researchers at the Max Planck Institute contribute their expertise in producing microbial natural products as well as in analyzing and designing metabolic pathways. Their knowledge of how microbial natural products can be produced without cells will also be an important component of the research at the new center. The Institute of Synthetic Biology complements these capabilities with automated laboratories and data- and AI-supported methods for identifying entirely new biosynthetic pathways.
Shenzhen Synthetic Biology Infrastructure: Modern Platform for Cultivation, Analysis, and Scale-Up of Microbial Natural Products
The collaboration gives researchers at the Max Planck Institute access to modern synthetic biology technologies in Shenzhen, above all the Shenzhen Synthetic Biology Infrastructure. This central analytical facility makes it possible to cultivate a wide range of microorganisms, including under anaerobic conditions, and to visualize them using state-of-the-art microscopes. The resulting cell cultures can be rapidly scaled up from very small quantities to fermenters of various sizes. The platform also includes methods for monitoring the amount of metabolic products produced by the cultures in real time and for analyzing the three-dimensional structure of the molecules offline. In this way, the platform generates standardized data that can be used in other facilities within the Shenzhen Synthetic Biology Infrastructure.
The collaboration also creates new opportunities for training the next generation of scientists, including joint doctoral projects as well as exchange and training programs. In this way, the new center will closely link basic research, technological innovation, and international support for early-career researchers.
“The combination of expertise and methodologies at our institute and in Shenzhen is unique and will enable us to significantly expand access to and the structural diversity of microbial natural products, and even to generate non-natural variants,” explains Helge Bode, director at the Max Planck Institute for Terrestrial Microbiology, who co-leads the center with Chenli Liu of the Shenzhen Institutes of Advanced Technology