UCSF scientists have developed a method to engineer a synthetic, feedback-regulated MAPK signaling pathway using scaffold-mediated feedback loops. This method can be used to systematically re-program MAPK signaling responses, allowing one to engineer and modify the MAPK signaling pathway to optimally control dynamic and complex behaviors in living cells. Many potential applications exist, including engineering of metabolic processes for optimal biofuel production.

Methyl halides are reactive one-carbon compounds from which a wide variety of commercially important organic products can be produced. Industrial production of methyl halides has been carried out using chemical methods that often consume high amounts of energy, and involve conditions of high temperature and pressure. Many plants and fungi produce methyl halides and release them into the environment. These organisms contain methyl halide transferases that combine a chlorine, bromine or iodine ion with a methyl group of the metabolite S-adenosylmethionine to form the methyl halide and S-adenosyl homocysteine. The harnessing of this process can lead to more efficient ways of producing biofuels.   UCSF investigators have developed a method to produce and/or overproduce methyl halides, to be used as a biofuel precursor, in a variety of plants and microorganisms. This process takes advantage of pathways that are common across all organisms and can be carried out on a commercial scale, for example in a reactor.