Production of organic acids from crude glycerol in industrial yeast hosts

The goal of this Phase I work plan is to construct a prototype biocatalyst that produces propionic acid from glycerol, a byproduct from biodiesel manufacturing. Propionic acid is a large volume, commodity chemical currently produced from petroleum. A biological production process may provide a route to generate this compound renewably, at reduced cost relative to the incumbent petrochemical process, and using more environmentally friendly manufacturing techniques. Additionally, this technology serves to create domestic jobs in the chemical manufacturing and agriculture industries.We will use metabolic engineering technologies to build our biocatalyst. In short, we identify biological pathways to produce propionic acid from nature and introduce these pathways into industrial microbes well suited for industrial production in a biorefinery setting. The immediate goal of the Phase I work plan is to demonstrate a prototype biocatalyst; this will be further optimized and improved upon subsequent to completion of the Phase I SBIR. The ultimate goal of this project is to construct a biocatalyst/process that is cost-competitive at scale with the existing, petrochemical production process. The societal benefits of achieving this goal are an increase in domestic manufacturing, increased demand for agricultural feedstocks that serve as inputs to the biocatalyst, and a lower environmental footprint relative to the petrochemical production process.