Dr. Greg Bokinsky
Research Theme(s): cell biology, synthetic biology
Research Interests: metabolic control of membrane synthesis, fatty acid synthesis, growth rate regulation, engineering antibiotic synthesis in bacteria
Biography
Greg Bokinsky is an associate professor in the Bionanoscience Department at TU Delft. Greg received his PhD in Chemistry and Chemical Biology in 2007 from Harvard University, where he used single-molecule fluorescence to study RNA folding and DNA-protein interactions. Greg then trained as a postdoc in a synthetic biology / metabolic engineering lab at the University of California at Berkeley, where he fell in love with living cells and metabolic regulation. Greg joined the Bionanoscience faculty in 2014 to pursue both applied and basic research projects, from turning bacteria into factories for bactericidal antibiotics to answering long-standing questions about how growing cells control the rate of membrane synthesis. The Bokinsky group applies a broad spectrum of techniques including targeted metabolomics and proteomics, metabolic modelling, live-cell microscopy, and microfluidics.
For further information regarding current research and available projects, visit Bokinsky lab.
Current Projects
- Mapping compatibility between iron-sulfur cluster enzymes and non-native cellular hosts
- How bacteria grow without bursting their membranes
- A biochemical reflex: switching between membrane synthesis and membrane repair
- Engineering antibiotic synthesis in bacteria
Highlight Publications
Resolving phylogenetic and biochemical barriers to functional expression of heterologous iron-sulphur cluster enzymes. Helena Shomar*, Pierre Simon Garcia*, Elena Fernández-Fueyo*, Francesca D’Angelo*, Martin Pelosse, Rita Rebelo Manuel, Ferhat Büke, Siyi Liu, Niels van den Broek, Nicolas Duraffourg, Carol de Ram, Martin Pabst, Simonetta Gribaldo, Beatrice Py, Sandrine Ollagnier de Choudens, Gregory Bokinsky†, Frédéric Barras.† (2021) biorxiv preprint
ppGpp is a bacterial cell size regulator. Ferhat Büke, Jacobi Grilli, Marco Cosentino Lagomarsino, Gregory Bokinsky*, Sander Tans.* (2020) biorxiv preprint
Posttranslational control of PlsB is sufficient to coordinate membrane synthesis with growth in Escherichia coli. M. Noga, F. Büke, N. van den Broek, N. Imholz, N. Scherer, F. Yang, G. Bokinsky. mBio 11:e02703-19 (2020).
Metabolic engineering of a carbapenem antibiotic synthesis pathway in Escherichia coli. H. Shomar, S. Gontier, N. van den Broek, H. Mora, M. Noga, P-L. Hagedoorn, G. Bokinsky. Nature Chemical Biology 14: 794–800 (2018).
