Self-Assembling Cell-Free Systems for Scalable Bioconversion

The Kamat Lab will collaborate closely with researchers in the Carothers, Peralta-Yahya (Georgia Tech), Noireaux (University of Minnesota), and Beliaev (Pacific Northwest National Laboratory) laboratories to support the production of synthetic vesicles and the anaylsis of membrane protein activity toawards the larger award goals of creating cell-free systems for scalable bioconversion. The Kamat Lab will use a variety of cell-free expression techniques to express the membrane protein, formate dehydrogenase (FDH), into synthetic vesicles and will use a variety of biophysical techniques (ex. fluorimetry, microscopy) to characterize vesicles. This work will ultimately support experiments to optimize C02 bioconversion. Developing cell-free platforms for heterogeneous catalyst expression and function could enable the generation of novel pathways for assimilating CO2 and formate that operate with carbon and energy efficiencies that cannot be achieved with microbial fermentation. The production and characterization of vesicles that support FDH activity will directly contribute to this goal. The multidisciplinary expertise the Kamat Lab provides includes assembly of synthetic and cell-derived vesicles, biophysical analysis of vesicle and protein properties, and the use of cell-free expression systems to integrate biological function into synthetic membranes. The Kamat lab would advise 2 graduate students that work on this project