Tang Lab
Principal Investigator: Yi Tang
Institution: University of California, Los Angeles (Los Angeles, CA)
Primary Subfield: Molecular & Cell Bio
Recruitment Status: Inquire for rotation/fellowship opportunities
Research Focus
ABSTRACT Reconstruction of plant natural product pathways in genetically well-characterized microbial organisms such as Saccharomyces cerevisiae is a sustainable and scalable method of producing high value pharmaceutical compounds. The family of monoterpene indole alkaloids (MIAs) represent a diverse collection of natural product with significant biological activities. MIAs are indispensable pharmaceutical ingredients, but are also expensive and difficult to isolate from plant producers. In the previous grant cycle, we successfully engineered yeast strains that can produce strictosidine, the universal precursor to MIAs, at titers exceeding 100 mg/L. In this proposal, we will engineer the downstream steps from strictosidine to overcome key metabolic bottlenecks, and develop new yeast based-technologies for engineering heterologous natural product pathways. In collaboration with the Di Carlo lab, we will deploy PicoShell enabled cell sorting to enable high throughput screening of MIA pathways. The PicoShell technology allows microfluidic-based, high throughput single-cell encapsulation from liquid culture. Encapsulated yeast cells can be grown in bulk in a monoclonal fashion and prod…
Active NIH Awards
- 5R01AT010001-09: Engineering Yeast towards High Titer Production of Monoterpene Indole Alkaloid Natural Products (2026)
- 2R35GM118056-11: Biosynthesis and Mining of Amino Acid-derived Natural Products in Fungi (2026)
- 5R01AT010001-08: Engineering Yeast towards High Titer Production of Monoterpene Indole Alkaloid Natural Products (2025)
- 5R35GM118056-10: MIRA: Enzymology and Self-Resistance of Natural Product Biosynthesis (2025)
- 5R35GM118056-09: MIRA: Enzymology and Self-Resistance of Natural Product Biosynthesis (2024)
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