Engineering proteins to support novel metabolic pathways is a very laborious process, requiring many costly Design-Build-Test cycles. We developed a technology to optimize novel proteins and pathways in a fast and cheap manner.

We engineer bacteria as biosensors for the activity of novel and promising pathways: no pathway activity – no growth; low pathway activity – low growth; high pathway activity – high growth.

We grow the bacteria for many generations in only a few weeks – much faster than any plant could grow. During these short bacterial life cycles very fast evolution takes place: changes to pathway proteins emerge spontaneously and the best pathway variant arises naturally as it outgrows the lesser variants and takes over the bacterial population.