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Call for papers - Increasing microbial efficiency

Guest Editors:
Horacio Bach: University of British Columbia, Canada
Shuobo Shi: Beijing University of Chemical Technology, China
Yongjun Wei: Zhengzhou University, China

Submission Status: Open   |   Submission Deadline: 15 May 2024
 

Microorganisms sustain and drive multifunctionality in natural ecosystems and biological systems. Because of their remarkable diversity and unique bioenergetic and metabolic abilities, microorganisms are relevant and valuable for biotechnological applications (e.g. in the industrial, agricultural, and biomedical sectors). Microorganisms play key roles in many biological processes, which can be exploited to produce valuable compounds and use otherwise ‘inaccessible resources.’ Understanding the regulation of their bioenergetic and metabolic mechanisms, as well as the genetic information stored within the microbial genomes, is therefore crucial for engineering these microorganisms as biocatalysts and developing relevant technologies for the production of biomolecules, biomaterials, (primary and secondary) metabolites, biofuels, and pharmaceuticals.

BMC Biotechnology is pleased to launch the collection titled ‘Increasing microbial efficiency’. The collection aims to explore research articles and methods in microbial biotechnology with a specific focus on technologies, applications, and methodologies that can be used to reveal and reprogram biological functions for potential biotechnological applications and enhance microbial efficiency.

New Content ItemThis collection supports and amplifies research related to SDG 9: Industry Innovation & Infrastructure.

Meet the Guest Editors

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Horacio Bach: University of British Columbia, Canada

 Dr Bach is currently a Clinical Assistant Professor at the University of British Columbia in Vancouver (Canada). He graduated from the Department of Biotechnology, Faculty of Sciences at Tel Aviv University (Israel) specializing in molecular microbiology and biotechnology. He studied the construction of new antibiotics at the University of Minnesota (USA) using computer chips. Dr Bach continued his specialization on infectious diseases, researching the mechanisms of survival of M. tuberculosis in macrophages. His areas of interest include virulence factors of human and ruminant pathogens, nanomedicine, and antibody engineering.

Shuobo Shi: Beijing University of Chemical Technology, China

Dr Shi holds a professorship at the Beijing University of Chemical Technology (China). He earned the PhD from Tianjin University (China), specializing in Biochemical Engineering, and he pursued postdoctoral research at Chalmers University of Technology (Sweden). His primary research interests focus on metabolic engineering and synthetic biology, encompassing areas such as optimizing microbial cell factories for biofuel production, advancing genome engineering and synthetic biology tools, and implementing automation systems for synthetic biology applications. Dr Shi has a relevant publication record with over 60 peer-reviewed papers, featuring four highly cited papers recognized by ESI.

Yongjun Wei: Zhengzhou University, China

Dr Wei obtained the PhD in Microbiology at the Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS), followed by a post-doctoral fellowship in Jens Nielsen's laboratory from 2014 to 2016 (Chalmers University of Technology, Sweden). Subsequently, he served as an assistant researcher at CAS before joining the Zhengzhou University's faculty in 2018. Currently holding the position of Associate Professor at Zhengzhou University, Dr Wei has an impressive academic record with over 80 publications and more than 20 patents to his credit. Additionally, he has contributed to the editing and writing of four books/book chapters. Dr Wei's research is primarily centered around the manipulation of microorganisms to facilitate natural product biosynthesis, and the innovative use of synthetic microbiota for disease treatment and pollution prevention and control.

About the Collection

Microorganisms sustain and drive multifunctionality in natural ecosystems and biological systems. Because of their remarkable diversity and unique bioenergetic and metabolic abilities, microorganisms are relevant and valuable for biotechnological applications (e.g. in the industrial, agricultural, and biomedical sectors). Microorganisms play key roles in many biological processes, which can be exploited to produce valuable compounds and use otherwise ‘inaccessible resources.’ Understanding the regulation of their bioenergetic and metabolic mechanisms, as well as the genetic information stored within the microbial genomes, is therefore crucial for engineering these microorganisms as biocatalysts and developing relevant technologies for the production of biomolecules, biomaterials, (primary and secondary) metabolites, biofuels, and pharmaceuticals.

While engineering microorganisms can be challenging, recent technological advances, e.g. in multi-omics approaches, molecular biology, and genetic tools, employed in the context of multidisciplinary research approaches, can provide exciting opportunities to develop new microbial production platforms and explore novel metabolic reactions, pathways, regulatory mechanisms, bioproducts, and favorable production conditions.

BMC Biotechnology is pleased to launch the collection titled ‘Increasing microbial efficiency’. The collection aligns with the United Nations' Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) 9: Industry, Innovation, and Infrastructure and acknowledges the importance of understanding the microbial cell working principles to foster sustainable, innovative, and resource-use effective technologies and industrial processes. This collection aims to explore research articles and methods in microbial biotechnology with a specific focus on technologies, applications, and methodologies that can be used to reveal and reprogram biological functions for potential biotechnological applications and enhance microbial efficiency. We welcome submissions addressing a broad range of research areas including, but not limited to:

  • Modulation of microbial mechanisms to enhance metabolic and bioenergetic efficiency
  • Enhancing microbial efficiency to produce primary and secondary metabolites, pharmaceuticals, biomaterials, biopolymers, biosurfactants, and bioemulsifiers
  • Engineering of microbial metabolic pathways to enhance the production of biomass and/or valuable bio-compounds
  • Optimizing microbial carbon use efficiency
  • Advances in genetic engineering and molecular genetic tools to exploit and optimize microbial metabolism and bioenergetics
  • Multi-omics technologies applied to use and optimize microbial metabolism and bioenergetics
  • Bioprocess optimization and bioreactor design to increase microbial production of biomass and valuable compounds
  • Approaches to enhance microbial stress tolerance and resilience
  • Microbial cell factories: designing and building microbial cell factories for the production of valuable bioactive compounds
  • Microbiota and probiotic microorganisms: exploring the microbial diversity to exploit beneficial microorganisms and metabolic traits to sustainably produce biofuels, bio-compounds, metabolites and pharmaceuticals
  • Microbial fermentation processes
  • Microbial systems and synthetic biology to enhance microbial efficiency
  • Microbial bioremediation: developing approaches to remove contaminants from the environment


Image credit: [M] Grispb / stock.adobe.com

Submission Guidelines

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This Collection welcomes submission of original Research Articles. Should you wish to submit a different article type, please read our submission guidelines to confirm that type is accepted by the journal. Articles for this Collection should be submitted via our submission system, Snapp. During the submission process you will be asked whether you are submitting to a Collection, please select "Increasing microbial efficiency" from the dropdown menu.

Articles will undergo the journal’s standard peer-review process and are subject to all of the journal’s standard policies. Articles will be added to the Collection as they are published.

The Editors have no competing interests with the submissions which they handle through the peer review process. The peer review of any submissions for which the Editors have competing interests is handled by another Editorial Board Member who has no competing interests.