Nature Features Han Li’s Biomanufacturing Technology

April 12, 2024 - Han Li’s synthetic biology and metabolic engineering research is featured in Nature, April 1, 2024. The article, “How synthetic biologists are building better biofactories,” highlights Li’s efforts to design synthetic systems that could transform chemical manufacturing, making bioproduction cheaper, easier and more viable. Li, an associate professor of chemical and biomolecular engineering at UC Irvine, introduces artificial chemical tools into biological systems to augment the cell's natural capability to convert renewable resources into useful chemicals such as fuels, industrial commodities and pharmaceuticals.

Her current research, highlighted in Nature, involves “investigating non-canonical redox cofactors, which can be used only by synthetic enzymes to bypass the cell’s natural machinery entirely. ‘It’s still using nature’s same infrastructure,’ says Li. These non-canonical redox cofactors (NRCs), she says, could allow synthetic biologists to create chemical reactions that are either entirely new to nature, or more efficient than those catalyzed by existing enzymes.”

To read the article, visit https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-024-00907-x

– Lori Brandt