Introduction

The IRP SynBioEco (Synthetic Biology for a Bio-inspired Economy), managed by Gilles Truan (Toulouse Biotechnology Institute, CNRS) in collaboration with Dr Matthew Chang (Synthetic Biology for Clinical and Technological Innovation (SynCTI) National University of Singapore) started in 2019 and will be renewed in 2023.

Missions and research themes

The shift from a petrochemical-based synthesis economy to a sustainable bio-resourced, climate-friendly alternative is a key challenge for the future. Biotechnology offers a plausible means to transform renewable agro-resources to high value bioproducts, achieving a circular bio-economy for urban sustainability. Engineering biology offers a unique pipeline to provide industrial biotechnology a new generation of biocatalysts that will open the way towards an unprecedented era of bio-manufacturing of high value bioproducts. The IRP’s project aims at producing new frontline scientific knowledge at the best international level, in the field of systems and synthetic biology applied to a bio-inspired economy. The scientific objective is to address generic knowledge’s bottlenecks to overcome the main limitations in using biocatalysts for industrial production, based on fundamental understanding of living systems. This knowledge ultimately will aim at designing innovative efficient strategy to develop new biocatalysts or bio products, or at optimizing the process currently used to produce targeted molecules already existing, from renewable resources. The biocatalysts will be engineered and optimized with a systemic approach to develop new bioprocess and to optimize performances according to industrial criteria.

MAIN projects of research

• Territorial support IDEX, regional projects
• National Projects (ANR, PHC, .): 2 Merlion PHC
• European projects (H2020): …………………….

Industrial partnerships: CARBIOS, SINGER INSTRUMENT, AGILENT

Funded projects which have merged from the IRP : 

– 2 PHC Merlion

– 1 Intra-Create call cities – NRF

– 1 PhD funding

– Staff exchanges

institutions and laboratories involved

France:
• Gilles Truan, TBI (Toulouse Biotechnology Institute) UMR CNRS 5504 – INRA 792 – INSA

• TWB (Toulouse White Biotechnology) UMS CNRS 3582 – INRA 1337 – INSA

Singapore:
• Dr Matthew Chang, SynCTI (Synthetic Biology for Clinical and Technological Innovation), NUS

• Biotransformation Innovation Platform (Biotrans), A*STAR