Rational design of genetic circuits, biosensors, and pathways to enable programmable biosynthesis, high‑throughput in vivo bioactivity screening and tailored bioproducts.
Projects led by: Jean-Alexandre Bureau, Zimo Jin
Engineering microbial metabolism to redirect cellular flux toward high-value compounds and optimizing biosynthetic pathways for efficient, sustainable production.
Projects led by: MD Mohsin Patwary, Asia Vighi
Using small molecules, non-natural precursors, cofactors, and bio-orthogonal chemistries to interrogate and control cellular pathways, to enable rapid genotype‑to‑phenotype mapping, and to discover bioactive compounds for mechanism-of-action studies and drug discovery.
Projects led by: Morten Raadam
Rational design and directed evolution of enzymes, transcription factors, and regulators to improve activity, specificity, and stability for biosynthetic pathways and regulatory circuits.
Projects led by: Eleanor Dong
Integrating genomics, transcriptomics, and metabolomics to characterize strain performance, identify bottlenecks, and guide engineering decisions across yeast and microbial systems.
Projects led by: Catherine Xu, Zimo Jin
Applying machine learning and deep learning to explore nature's chemical space and to guide the design of biosynthetic pathways, enzymes, and natural product–like analogs through model‑driven approaches.
Projects led by: Dr. Attia Iram, YeEn Kim
Discovery, engineering, and production of biologically active compounds (e.g., pharmaceuticals) with a focus on anticancer and neuroactive molecules for drug discovery and therapeutic development.
Projects led by: Jan Tobias Boehnke, Kate Willis-Ureña, Zachary Grimard
Elucidating and engineering biosynthetic pathways in microbial hosts to overproduce terpenoids and derivatives via the MVA and MEP pathways, and to explore structure–activity relationships of structurally complex molecules.
Projects led by: Dr. Kristina Rothchild, Morten Raadam
Engineering microbial cells and membranes as scalable, high‑throughput production platforms for precision fermentation, with a focus on yield, titer, and scalability.
Projects led by: Kate Willis-Ureña, Magdalena Escobar Oliva
Scaling up engineered strains from shake flask to bioreactor, with a focus on fermentation optimization, extracellular transport of target compounds for downstream processing, and sustainable bioprocess development.
Projects led by: Dr. Attia Iram
Our research aims to engineer biosynthetic systems for production of high value compounds with a broad range of applications in medicine, industry or agriculture through Synthetic Biology and Metabolic Engineering approaches. Through the application of innovative approaches, we are redesigning production host metabolisms to mimic other natural systems and improve performance of heterologous pathways and enzymes, regulate pathways, and optimize targeted production. By triggering evolution within the host, this work will accelerate the discovery of new pathways and the assembly of new functional biosynthetic routes. The research projects in our lab focus on two major themes: A. Development of approaches and tools and B. Biosynthesis and production of small molecules.
Jin, Z., Kim, Y. E., Ignea, C., 2026. PrimerWeaver: An integrated web server for primer design in molecular biology workflows. Nucleic Acid Research, 54, doi.org/10.1093/nar/gkag399.
Jin, Z., Dong, Y., Rafi, A. M., Patwary, M. M., Xu, C., Raadam, M. H., de Boer, C. G., & Ignea, C., 2025. Unraveling the regulatory dynamics of bidirectional promoters for modulating gene co-expression and metabolic flux in Saccharomyces cerevisiae. Nucleic Acids Research, 53(11), gkaf511.
Sofianovich, O., Willis-Urena, K., Dong, Y., & Ignea, C., 2025. Bioengineered yeast for preventing age-related diseases. Trends in Biotechnology, 43(3), 586–600.
Iram, A., Dong, Y., & Ignea, C., 2024. Synthetic biology advances towards a bio-based society in the era of artificial intelligence. Current Opinion in Biotechnology, 87, 103143.
Duan, Y-T., Koutsaviti, A., Harizani, M., Ignea, C., Roussis, V., Zhao, Y., Ioannou, E., Kampranis, S. C., 2023. Widespread biosynthesis of 16-carbon terpenoids in bacteria. Nature Chemical Biology, 19 (12), 1532-1539.
Bureau, J. A., Escobar Oliva, M., Dong Y., Ignea C., 2023. Engineering yeast for production of plant terpenoids using synthetic biology approaches. Natural Product Reports, 40(12), 1822-1848.
Ignea, C., Raadam, M.H., Koutsaviti, A., Zhao, Y., Duan, Y.T., Harizani, M., Miettinen, K., Georgantea, P., Rosenfeldt, M., Viejo-Ledesma, S.E., Petersen, M.A., Bredie, W.L.P., Staerk, D., Roussis, V., Ioannou, E., Kampranis, S.C., 2022. Expanding the terpene biosynthetic code with non-canonical 16 carbon atom building blocks. Nature Communications, 13(1), 5188.
Dusséaux, S., Wajn, W. T., Liu, Y., Ignea, C., Kampranis, S. C., 2020. Transforming yeast peroxisomes into microfactories for the efficient production of high-value isoprenoids, Proc Nat Acad Sci USA, 117(50):31789-3179.
Ignea, C., Raadam, M.H., Motawia, M.S., Makris, A.M., Vickers, C.E., Kampranis, S.C., 2019. Orthogonal monoterpenoid biosynthesis in yeast constructed on an isomeric substrate. Nature Communications, 10(1), 3799.
Ignea, C., Pontini, M., Motawia, M.S., Maffei, M.E., Makris, A.M., Kampranis, S.C., 2018. Synthesis of 11-carbon terpenoids in yeast using protein and metabolic engineering. Nature Chemical Biology, 14(12), 1090-1098.
Ignea, C., Athanasakoglou, A., Ioannou, E., Georgantea, P., Trikka, F.A., Loupassaki, S., Roussis, V., Makris, A.M., Kampranis, S.C., 2016. Carnosic acid biosynthesis elucidated by a synthetic biology platform. Proc Natl Acad Sci USA, 113(13), 3681-3686.
Ignea, C., Trikka, F.A., Nikolaidis, A.K., Georgantea, P., Ioannou, E., Loupassaki, S., Kefalas, P., Kanellis, A.K., Roussis, V., Makris, A.M., Kampranis, S.C., 2015. Efficient diterpene production in yeast by engineering Erg20p into a geranylgeranyl diphosphate synthase. Metabolic Engineering, 27, 65-75.
Ignea, C., Ioannou, E., Georgantea, P., Loupassaki, S., Trikka, F.A., Kanellis, A.K., Makris, A.M., Roussis, V., Kampranis, S.C., 2015. Reconstructing the chemical diversity of labdane-type diterpene biosynthesis in yeast. Metabolic Engineering, 28, 91-103.
Ignea, C., Pontini, M., Maffei, M.E., Makris, A.M., Kampranis, S.C., 2014. Engineering monoterpene production in yeast using a synthetic dominant negative geranyl diphosphate synthase. ACS Synthetic Biology, 3(5), 298-306.