Four Erasmus Mundus Students of the MSc. Biological and Chemical Engineering for a Sustainable Bio-economy joined our group until June. Ariyan Amirifar, Belén Fernández de Caleya Ramiro, George William Ssendagala and José Gustavo Varona García will develop a metabolically engineered yeast strain of R. toruloides that will use lignocellulosic biomass (Brewer’s Spent Grain – BSG) as a substrate to produce monoterpenes. The produced terpenes shall be used (instead of hops) during fermentation to produce the distinctive beer flavor. This project will ultimately contribute to circularity in the brewing industry by supporting the valorization of BSG to create a useful product that can in turn be used by the same brewing industry.
Development of a dedicated Golden Gate Assembly platform (RtGGA) for Rhodotorula toruloides
We are thrilled to announce the recent publication on BioRXiv of the Golden Gate Assembly platform for R. Toruloides. Congratulations to the authors for this achievement that will guide and help doing scientific advancement.
Visit of the Brazil Ambassador
On Monday, February 28th the Ambassador of Brazil in Tallinn, José Antonio Gomes Piras, accompanied by the Minister Counsellor Paulo Palm and Administrative Assistant Silmara Valenga visited the biotechnology laboratories at Taltech. This event was organized by Nemailla B. and Petri L. in collaboration with Professor Cecilia Sarmiento.
Seminar by Dr. Francesco Gatto, co-founder and CSO of Elypta
In this seminar, Dr. Francesco Gatto illustrates how his group investigated regulation of cancer metabolism using systems biology approaches leading to the discovery of potential cancer biomarkers for early detection. The talk further focuses on the challenge to translate fundamental discoveries in clinical practice and the foundation of Elypta – a start-up university spin-off that is executing this transition.
PhD seminar
On Friday 18th of february, our three freshly started PhD students gave a seminar to introduce their working plans.
- Alina Reķena – Advanced modeling approaches in yeast
The presentation introduced basic principles of constraint-based modeling together with advanced modeling techniques, such as proteome allocation and thermodynamics-based constraints. Current project is focused on model development for non-conventional yeast Rhodotorula toruloides.
2. Gabriel Luz Chaves – Engineering R. toruloides for improved lipid production
In this seminar was discussed the use of non-conventional yeast, R. toruloides, for the production of lipids and the application of synthetic biology tools for strain improvement.
3. Henrique Sepulveda – Development of 3D printed engineered living materials for growth-decoupled biochemicals production
The topics of 3D printing and engineered living materials for biochemicals production was introduced in this seminar. Followed by a talk about our current research goals for the Ph.D. Project.
From left: Gabriel, Henrique and Alina
Feel free to watch the seminar record
Bioengineering concepts introduced at the Estonian national TV broadcast ‘Center of excellence for curiosity’
Petri Lahtvee introduced the concepts and opportunities, but also potential threats of bioengineering and synthetic biology at the Estonian national TV (ETV) broadcast ‘Center of Excellence for curiosity’ (Uudishimu tippkeskus).
The broadcast can be streamed (Season 4; Episode 12. Only in Estonian) here.
Pilot up-scale cultivations
In the course of the PERFECOAT project, Nemailla Bonturi and Petri Lahtvee visited Technical University of Munich (TUM, Straubing, Germany) to perform for the first time to our knowledge industrial scale (30L bioreactor) cultivations of R. toruloides in xylose-rich hydrolysate (Fibenol, Estonia).
Petri-Jaan Lahtvee (Taltech),
and Nemailla Bonturi (Taltech)
biomass containing high content of carotenoids.
using R. toruloides biomass
as binders.
Opinion article in the Estonian cultural magazine Vikerkaar
The Estonian cultural magazine Vikerkaar published a series of opinion articles on novel technologies influencing humans in the coming decades. Associate professors Erkki Karo and Petri-Jaan Lahtvee from TalTech discussed the influence of biorevolution and synthetic biology – ‘The third coming of biorevolution in the era of the Green Deal’.
The article is available (only in Estonian) here.
Estonian Bioeconomy conference
Collaboration project between TalTech, University of Tartu and Life-science University together with three Estonian ministries – ADDVAL-BIOEC – Added value in Estonian bioeconomy – with a strong contribution also from our Bioengineering group is finishing. The collected research will be presented at the conference on October 26th, 2021, at Erinevate Tubade Klubi, Telliskivi 60-A1, Tallinn (event language is Estonian).
More information: www.taltech.ee/biomajandus
Register to the event: https://forms.gle/hiUc9MCBefLsPePi8
Guest seminar by Sergio Bordel
You are welcome to participate in the following guest seminar.
Prof. Sergio Bordel Velasco
Department of Chemical Engineering and Environmental Technology, University of Valladolid, Spain
Title: Metabolism of methanotrophic bacteria. A Genome-Scale modeling perspective.
When: Thursday, October 14th at 4 PM
Where: SCI-028 (on-line link will follow)
Link to publications: https://scholar.google.com/citations?hl=en&user=I2K5LLUAAAAJ
Host: Assoc. Prof. Petri-Jaan Lahtvee
Yeast4Bio Training School
On September 13-17h happened the first Yeast4Bio Training School financed by the COST agency and coordinated by Jose L. Martinez (Associate Professor and Head of Fermentation core in the Technical University of Denmark). Our group member, Gintarė Liudžiūtė learned there fundamental knowledge of fermentation design and analysis applied to non-conventional yeasts which are used as cell factories for high-value compounds production. Attending to the first Yeast4Bio Training School was a significant personal and professional opportunity to develop scientific competences into our group.
Garage48 event Food 2021
TalTech and Food Tech and Bioengineering lab will be present at the Garage48 event Food 2021, organized in Tartu, Estonia.
Garage48 Food – greener food for a greener planet will take place from October 24-26, 2021 online and offline.
More info and registration: https://garage48.org/events/garage48-food
Sustainable Food Systems presented at the Estonian Human Genetics conference
Prof. Petri Lahtvee was introducing the Sustainable Food Production and Food Economy 4.0 at the Estonian Society of Human Genetics conference, organized from September 30 to October 1st in Haapsalu, Estonia.
Full program: here
Yeast4Bio COST Action meeting in A Coruna, Spain
It was a great pleasure to visit the COST Action Yeast4Bio bi-annual conference in A Coruna, Spain and chair a session on non-conventional yeast Systems and Synthetic Biology together with Prof. Rodrigo Ledesma-Amaro.
Two days full of exciting scientific discussions!!! Thank you to all the speakers and participants for creating such a nice environment and Prof. Christian Kennes @UDC_gal for organising it. #bioeconomy #nonconventionalyeast #bioproducts
More info on Yeast4bio: https://yeast4bio.eu/
Seminar
On the 28th of October 2021 (14h- 16h) a seminar will be given by Petri-Jaan Lahtvee (Assoc. Professor) on Circular Economy at ALU Freiburg (Germany), one of the partner in the Local Electron Delivery in Bioinks for Efficient Yeast Cell Factories project.
This project of the Baltic-German University Liaison Office is supported by the German Academic Exchange Service (DAAD) with funds from the Foreign Office of the Federal Republic Germany.
Here the link to access the conference
https://uni-freiburg.zoom.us/j/66501878693?pwd=Sk1WQk1HNXpIdlBIRjhJWGlSYVB0QT09
Group outing day
We had fun at the group outing at Nõmme Adventure park, climbing trees, ropes and free-falling from the trees:)
Thanks, Andreia, for organising it!
New students
Two new students have joined the group. Supported by Dora Plus scholarship both PhD students from Brazil, Luísa Czamanski and Julianno Sabedotti De Biaggi, will work 6 and 3 months on R. toruloides, respectively. Luísa will focus on engineering R. toruloides strains capable of producing terpenes, which have a wide range of applications such as precursors of renewable fuels. Julianno will focus on R. toruloides carotenoid metabolism by expressing the enzyme phytoene desaturase from multiple phyla of Fungi in Escherichia coli and analysing its activity on different substrates in vitro.
New student
Artjom Tšitšerin, a high school student at Tallinn Central Russian Gymnasium, has joined our group to curate the carotenoid pathway by investigating whether overexpressing an heterologous xylulokinase in R. Toruloides could improve carotenoid yield.
New manuscript on 3D printing of living materials
We are excited to announce a new publication on 3D printing of living materials. In this ACS – Applied Bio Materials publication led by Tobias Butelmann, we examined the permissibility of oxygen in hydrogels and how yeast metabolism functions in response to immobilization.
This publication results from our TalTech research group’s ongoing fruitful collaboration with the Alshakim Nelson’s Laboratory at University of Washington and Tarmo Tamm’s Laboratory at Tartu University.
Congrats to all co-authors for the fantastic achievement!
Congrats to all the authors for their great work!
Bioengineering lab presentations at ICY15
Prof. Petri Lahtvee and senior scientist Dr. Nemailla Bonturi were presenting at this year’s largest yeast conference ICY15 meets ICYGMB 30 (International Conference of Yeast meets International Conference on Yeast Genetics and Molecular Biology), taking place on August 23-27, 2021 and hosted by BOKU, Austria.
Petri gave a talk and chaired the Systems Biology session, while Nemailla gave a talk at the Synthetic Biology session.
More info: https://icy15.boku.ac.at/
