On April 13, the National Key Research and Development Program "Synthetic Biology" key special project "Construction and Production Demonstration of Microbial Drug Cell Factories," led by the South China Sea Institute of Oceanology, Chinese Academy of Sciences (hereinafter referred to as the South China Sea Institute), was launched, and the implementation plan was discussed in Guangzhou. Chinese Academy of Sciences academicians Deng Zixin and Zhang Si, among others, attended the event.
Li Chaolun, director of the South China Sea Institute, stated that the institute attaches great importance to the project and will fully support and ensure its smooth implementation as the leading unit. Zhang Changsheng, the project leader and a researcher at the South China Sea Institute, introduced the research content, overall objectives, technical routes, task arrangements, and implementation plan of the project.
In addition, the four project leaders elaborated on the research background and key scientific issues, research content and objectives, technical routes and task division, annual plans and budget arrangements, expected results and evaluation indicators, research foundation, and progress of each project in detail.
It was reported that active natural products from microbial sources are important sources for drug discovery and are closely related to people's health. However, the unclear synthesis pathways, low yields, complex compositions, lack of high-quality host cells, suitable artificial synthesis routes, and matching fermentation processes greatly limit the efficient preparation and industrialization of microbial drug products. Therefore, there is an urgent need to achieve efficient, energy-saving, and environmentally friendly synthetic biology innovation for microbial drug synthesis and develop more efficient production processes.
After inquiries and discussions by the project expert group, it was unanimously agreed that the research plan is reasonable and feasible, and the implementation conditions and guarantee measures are in place, and they agreed to pass the implementation plans of the project and its sub-projects. The smooth convening of this meeting further clarified the research directions, refined the research plans, and laid a solid foundation for the smooth implementation of the project.
It is understood that the project aims to reveal and utilize the molecular mechanisms for comprehensive fermentation performance improvement of existing high-yield strains, rational reconstruction of the microbial drug innovation system using synthetic biology technology, dynamic adaptation of industrial host strains and synthetic pathways, and construction of simplified artificial cell factories. The ultimate goal is to achieve efficient manufacturing and production demonstrations of 3-5 target drug molecules.
