We need to eat ~1 kg of broccoli pr. week to get the health benefits of broccoli. This has primed a desire to engineer microbial production of the bioactives as dietary supplements.

Aim: Our goal is to engineer the health-promoting, bioactive compound glucoraphanin from broccoli into a microorganism. This will enable a stable rich source and thereby by enabling intake of well-defined doses.

Toward this goal we have several projects:

1)   Boosting levels of precursors and co-factors

2)   Transport engineering to prevent premature export of the intermediates

3)   Increase of flux through the pathway by elimination of bottlenecks

4)   Transport engineering to ensure efficient export to prevent feedback inhibition

Methodologies: bioinformatics, mining of databases, expression and characterization of enzymes/transporters, construction of multigene cassettes, engineering in multiple host organisms (tobacco, yeast, E. coli), analysis of LC-MS data,

Expectations: We expect you to be enthusiastic, dedicated and eager to learn and advance your research skills as well as oral and written presentation skills. In return, we provide a stimulating, international research environment.

If this has your interest, please send cv and exam grades to:
Prof. Barbara Halkier, DynaMo Center of Excellence, PLEN, bah@plen.ku.dk