José Miguel Forte

PhD student

 

Background

MBA Catolica|Nova (in progress)
MSc Biotechnology, IST, 2001
Graduation in Biotechnology Engineering,

Universidade Lusófona, 1997

 

Research Activities

 

In vivo expression of foreign or synthetic genes in E. coli, and over expression of native genes, can be subject to a number of limitations. Many gene products are insoluble or unstable and are either degraded by intracellular proteases or aggregated in inclusion bodies. Other proteins cannot be product in living cells because of their toxicity. The absence of cellular control mechanisms and the ability to manipulate the incubation mixture composition make cell-free systems look attractive for gene expression, especially for biopharmaceuticals production. The objective of my work is to improve an existing Cell Free Production System in order to make economic and technical feasible the adaptation of this methodology to the large scale production of highly valuable commercial and therapeutic recombinant proteins. To achieve this objective, the productivity of the system will be optimized by increasing the production of ribosomes in the initial extract, by developing a new ATP fueling system and by using low cost but efficient sources of components of the CFPS, like amino acids.

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