One of the biggest challenges for humanity today is feeding 10 billion people by 2050. Population exploration and environmental pollution challenge the time-consuming traditional food supply chain, which consumes a large amount of water and land resources and leads to substantial ecological issues. In addition, with the advances in nutritional research, the modern food philosophy has shifted from “guaranteed supplies” to “balanced nutrition”, which requires a more controlled and sustainable food process. Synthetic biology is an emerged scientific discipline that can transform basic biological research into actual social productivity. The bloomsome of synthetic biology has a great impact on the food industry. By using programmed monoclonal cell factories, engineered microbial consortia, or cell-free synthetic platforms, we might be able to develop a novel food supply chain, which might be an effective solution to overcome the unsustainable issues associated with the traditional food process.
The current Research Topic aims to cover the recent and novel research trends in synthetic biology for future food challenges. We tried to address a couple of essential questions regarding the impact of recent scientific progress in synthetic biology, protein engineering, metabolic engineering, and biochemical processes on future food development. First, how can synthetic biology improve the traditional food production and manufacturing process? Second, how synthetic biology can enhance food nutrition by changing food composition and adding new functionalities. Last but not least, how do engineered microbes improve the traditional fermentation process and improve the food quality.
We welcome submissions of Original Research and Review articles, including but not limited to the following topics:
• Construct microbial cell factories to produce food ingredients, such as meat analog, milk analog, food coloring, food flavor, artificial sweetener, etc.
• Study and biosynthesis of functional food, such as carotenoids, human milk oligosaccharides, L-taurine, vitamin K2, etc.
• Synthetic biology strategies used to improve the traditional fermentation process.
Keywords: synthetic biology, protein engineering, directed evolution, metabolic engineering, future food, food science, gene editing, biotechnology, bio-process, fermentation, synthetic food
Important note: All contributions to this Research Topic must be within the scope of the section and journal to which they are submitted, as defined in their mission statements. Frontiers reserves the right to guide an out-of-scope manuscript to a more suitable section or journal at any stage of peer review.
