Modular cell design for rapid, efficient strain engineering toward industrialization of biology

• Present the potential of microbial synthesis for a combinatorial space of chemicals.
• Highlight recent biological tool development to engineer efficient, novel pathways.
• Underline the importance of dynamic pathway control to optimize reaction fluxes.
• Discuss challenges and opportunities facing heterologous pathway engineering.
• Emphasize modular chassis cell design principles enabling rapid strain engineering.

Transforming biology into an engineering practice has great potential to shape the industrialization of biology that will drive rapid development of novel microbial manufacturing platforms. These platforms will be capable of producing a vast number of sustainable industrial chemicals at scale from alternative renewable feedstocks or wastes (e.g., biomass residues, biogas methane, syngas, CO2) without harming the environment. The challenge is to develop microbial platforms to produce targeted chemicals with high efficiency in a rapid, predictable, and reproducible fashion. This paper highlights recent progress in rational design of heterologous pathways for combinatorial biosynthesis of a large space of chemicals and modular cell design for rapid strain engineering.