FATVAL - Systematic metabolic engineering of Saccharomyces cerevisiae for high value fatty acids and derived products

Fatty acids are a large class of compounds of potential high value. They are also important parts of many classes of compounds with economical and therapeutic value. Fatty acids are currently extracted from non-sustainable sources such as fish or palm oil. Rare high value fatty acid extraction is often worse due to their very low titers in biomass. This project proposes to perform a systematic metabolic engineering analysis of Saccharomyces cerevisiae as a sustainable fatty acid production host as well as to apply the fatty acid production capabilities for a selection of therapeutically interesting compounds including Capsaicin and Cannabinol. Robust industrial yeast strains capable of metabolizing pentose sugars in agri-food waste streams will be introduced early in the development to provide metabolic chassis that can be used directly in potential commercial processes.