Engineering bacterial enzyme secretion for cellulose utilisation

The opportunity exists to produce valuable biochemicals from waste sugarcane biomass however it is inhibited by cost of pre-treatments needed to release fermentable sugars to create the process. This PhD project will develop technology to reduce the cost of extracting fermentable sugars by engineering a new strain of bacteria (Pseudomonas putida) to degrade cellulosic biomass to produce high value chemicals. The new strain will be a useful platform for converting waste biomass into commercially valuable biochemicals providing economic benefits to the sugar industry through product diversification.