We are a diverse team researching engineering biology to advance synthetic genomics, to engineer living materials and to accelerate modular synthetic biology.
By learning to program biology we make breakthroughs in medicine, materials, sustainability and many other areas.
Sept 2025: Stacey's modular toolkit for yeast secretion optimisation is published in ACS Synthetic Biology
Aug 2025: Xinyu's paper on iterative SCRaMbLE in the yeast genome is published in Nature Communications
July 2025: Fankang's papern on programmable yeast multicellular tools is published in Cell
ANNOUNCEMENT
Fankang Meng's planet-inspired PhD work on yeast multicellularity is now published in Cell
Coordination of behaviour in multicellular systems is one of the main ways nature increases complexity of biological function. While S.cerevisiae yeast is used extensively in research and biotech, it is a unicellular organism capable of limited multicellular states.
Inspired by work on multicellularity by Will Ratcliffe, synthetic adhesion by Ingmar Riedel-Kruse, orthogonal yeast mating by Sonja Billerbeck and mammalian synthetic multicellularity from Wendell Lim’s lab, Fankang set out to bring multicellularity to yeast via synthetic biology.
In Fankang’s project he expanded the possibilities for engineering multicellular behaviours in yeast by developing two modular toolkits, MARS and SATURN for two key mechanisms seen in multicellularity: contact-dependent signalling and specific cell-to-cell adhesion.
MARS (Mating-peptide Anchored Response System) is a toolkit based on surface-displayed fungal mating peptides and G protein-coupled receptor (GPCR) signalling which can mimic cell-cell signalling without signal diffusion.
A total of 8 orthogonal MARS pairs were developed which can build complex synthetic biological systems like scalable chains and logic gates where multiple signals can be processed in parallel.
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The second toolkit, SATURN (Saccharomyces Adhesion Toolkit for multicellUlar patteRNing) surface displays adhesion protein pairs on yeasts to facilitate the creation of specific cell aggregation patterns. Their remarkable orthogonality ensures that each pair functions without cross-interaction.
Combining MARS & SATURN, Fankang designed synthetic multicellular pattern such as Isolation, Phase Separation, and Bridging that undergo complex behaviours akin to developmental processes, leading to cell differentiation based on local cell interactions.
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​Finally using MARS and SATURN, Fankang further developed JUPITER (JUxtacrine sensor for Protein-protein InTERaction), a genetic sensor for assaying protein-protein interactions in culture, demonstrating this as a tool to select for high affinity binders among mutated nanobodies.
Engineering yeast multicellular behaviors via synthetic adhesion and contact signaling
Fankang Meng (åŸå‡¡åº·), William M. Shaw, Yui Kei Keith Kam, Tom Ellis - Cell
Collectively, MARS, SATURN, and JUPITER present valuable tools that could facilitate the synthetic biology engineering of complex multicellularity with yeast and expand the scope of its biotechnological applications.
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We’re excited to share this work and see what others will do with these tools.
As a bonus extra, this work also saw us make a highly engineered yeast strain, with all its natural multicellular and adhesion genes deleted from its genome, like the FLO genes and others. We expect this to be a very useful strain for others.
