Intake of cruciferous vegetables are rich in glucosinolates that are associated with numerous health benefits including reduced risk of developing cancer. Substantial attention has been given to glucoraphanin that is highly enriched in broccoli and associated with its health-promoting properties. However, 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 glucosinolates as dietary supplements.

Aim:
Our goal is to engineer the health-promoting, bioactive glucosinolates from cruciferous vegetables into microorganisms. This will enable a stable rich source and thereby by enabling intake of well-defined doses. Towards this goal we are using state-of-the-art synthetic biology tools.

We focus currently on the following projects:

1)   Boosting the levels of precursors and co-factors

2)   Impact of multiple copies of an entire pathway integrated into genome

3)   Transport engineering to prevent premature export of the intermediates

4)   ‘Omics-based strain optimization to increase flux through the pathway

5)   Transport engineering to ensure efficient export to increase yield, prevent feedback inhibition and reduce toxicity

Who we are:
Research group of Barbara Ann Halkier in the DynaMo Center of Excellence (https://dynamo.ku.dk). We provide a stimulating, international research environment with lots of opportunities to advance your skills. Our research lab has a strong international research profile with a recent record of high impact publications.

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.