Developing platforms for the production of diterpenoids (TSB application reference 43970-304155)

Yeast and algae are being engineered to churn out cancer drugs and sunscreen ingredients from nothing more than sugar. Plants naturally produce diterpenoids—a class of chemicals that includes the cancer drug paclitaxel and zero-calorie sweeteners like steviol glycosides. But many other promising diterpenoids remain stuck in the lab because extracting them from plants is too expensive or yields too little material. This project aims to bypass plants entirely by inserting the relevant biosynthetic pathways into yeast, algae, and fast-growing crops, turning them into living factories. If the team succeeds, manufacturers could produce scarce cancer treatments and UV-protective skin compounds at scale, without harvesting rare plants or relying on complex chemical synthesis. The same platform could be adapted to make any diterpenoid found in nature, opening up a pipeline for new pharmaceuticals and cosmetic ingredients. The work is applied synthetic biology—it directly targets commercial production—but the chassis organisms developed here will also serve as tools for fundamental discovery, allowing researchers to probe how plants assemble these complex molecules in the first place.