Synthetic Biology Future Science Platform Seminar

We are delighted to bring you the next virtual Synthetic Biology Future Science Platform Seminar Series. This will be an opportunity for you to hear, in detail, each month about the latest work from SynBioFSP funded projects, CSIRO-University Fellows and SynBioFSP PhD students.

Seminar Program:

Welcome, Acknowledgement of Traditional Owners and introduction of speakers by Dr Janet Reid, CSIRO Biofoundry Facility Manager.

Speaker #1: Huw Hayman Zumpe, BioFoundry Technician at the CSIRO BioFoundry

Automated synthetic biology workflows from the CSIRO BioFoundry

Bio: Huw provides technical expertise for the CSIRO BioFoundry, using high-throughput instrumentation and molecular biology techniques to develop and analyse strains for clients in industry and academia. He joined the BioFoundry in 2019, after working on a yeast metabolic engineering project for an industry client, as a research assistant in the Vickers group at the Australian Institute for Bioengineering and Nanotechnology (AIBN).

Abstract: The CSIRO BioFoundry is a state-of-the-art facility providing bioengineering capability to the R&D community. We use high-throughput hardware and software solutions to rapidly design, build and test new biotechnologies for clients in industry and academia. Huw will describe the synthetic biology workflows that are in use at the CSIRO BioFoundry, noting their strengths and limitations, and potential modifications that could be made to suit future projects.

Speaker #2: Dr Tom Williams, Research Fellow in Synthetic Biology, Department of Molecular Sciences, Macquarie University

Unlocking Nature’s potential at the Australian Genome Foundry

Bio: Dr Tom Williams completed his PhD in synthetic biology at The University of Queensland (UQ) under the supervision of A/Prof Claudia Vickers, Prof Lars Nielsen, and Dr Jens Kromer in 2015. At UQ, Tom worked on synthetic biology tools for dynamic metabolic pathway control, and developed one of the first synthetic quorum sensing systems in yeast. Since 2015, Tom has been a postdoctoral researcher under the mentorship of Professors Sakkie Pretorius and Ian Paulsen at Macquarie University. Tom has worked on the ‘Yeast 2.0’ synthetic yeast genome project, engineering one-carbon metabolism in yeast through a CSIRO FSP Fellowship, engineering minimal genomes, and on a diverse array of projects focused on directed evolution and biosensor engineering.

Abstract: Synthetic biology has enormous potential to enable sustainable biomanufacturing, novel therapeutics and diagnostics, and greater insights into fundamental aspects of biology. However, this potential is limited by the complexity of living systems and our incomplete knowledge of them. Automated, high-throughput molecular and microbiology in Biofoundries has emerged as a partial solution to these problems by allowing thousands of synthetic biology designs to be built and tested in parallel, affording a greater chance of reaching engineering objectives. The Australian Genome Foundry (AGF) is being established at Macquarie University to provide biofoundry technology to Australian academics and companies, with the goal of fostering a vibrant synthetic biology research community and bio-economy. This seminar will provide an example of how early automation protocols were developed at the AGF to construct 2 million base pairs of synthetic DNA as part of the global Yeast 2.0 project. Future automation pipelines for high-throughput metabolic and genome engineering will also be presented.

Please note that this seminar will be recorded.

Please direct any seminar series enquiries to SynBioFSP_Admin@csiro.au.