Patrik Jones

The research objectives of the Microbial Metabolic Engineering group are to understand and engineer the metabolism of biotechnologically important microorganisms in order to transform solar to chemical energy.

To achieve this we study the metabolism of model prokaryotes (E. coli, fermentative; cyanobacteria, autotrophic) using both computational and experimental methods, and engineer synthetic metabolic pathways.

There are three main research themes:

1. Synthetic metabolic pathways for industrial production of chemicals, creating synthetic routes for compounds without a known biological pathway, or chemicals with no known biogenic origin (e.g. propane), and solutions that by-pass constraints of native host metabolism.
2. Engineering cyanobacteria for the direct conversion of CO2 into chemicals.
3. Understanding metabolism by computational and experimental systems biology.

Patrik R. Jones, Ph.D., is Senior Lecturer in Industrial Biotechnology at the Department of Life Sciences, Imperial College London. He was educated as a winemaker (B. Ag. Sci. Oenology) but moved into academic work including a PhD in plant biochemistry (2001), followed by post-doctoral research in plant biochemistry, wine chemistry/sensory perception, and since 2005, metabolic engineering.

In 2011 he was awarded an ERC Consolidator Grant and at the end of 2013 he commenced his first academic position at ICL. He has coordinated two research networks, the EU FP7 collaborative project DirectFuel (http://www.directfuel.eu) and the Nordic Energy Research project AquaFEED, and is currently a partner in the EU FP7 projects DEMA and PHOTO.COMM and H2020 projects PHOTOFUEL and FUTUREAGRICULTURE.

A common theme throughout his entire career is the reconstitution or construction of metabolic pathways, from native to synthetic. The current group focus is placed on engineering heterotrophic and photoautotrophic microorganisms for the conversion of renewable substrates (sugar or light and CO2) into chemicals.

Links to key publications

• Vuorjioki et al. J. Proteome Res. (2016) 15, 266-279
• Akhtar et al. Metabolic Engineering Communications (2015) 2, 1-5
• Kallio et al. Nature Communications (2014), 5:4731
• Akhtar et al. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America (2013) 110(1), 87-92
• Guerrero et al. PLOS One (2012) 7(11): e50470

Older

• Akhtar Metabol Eng 2009, 11, 139-, (7) Jones JBC 2003 278, 43910-, (8) Jones JBC 2003 278, 10291-, (9) Tattersall Science 2001, 293, 1826-, (10) Jones JBC 1999 274, 35483-

Links

Personal webpage: http://www.imperial.ac.uk/people/p.jones
Twitter: https://twitter.com/outinsight