Systems biology approaches for chemical engineering

Biological systems are becoming of central interest also in fields which go beyond science and medicine scopes, such as chemical engineering. In the last decades, some complex biological systems have been considered for large scale chemicals production. Among these, photosynthetic algae, with particular emphasis on microalgae, have been regarded to as a possible biofuel resource for several benefits they owe over other current technologies. Systems biology approaches can be productively coupled to investigate some chemical engineering applications, such as bioreactor design and metabolic engineering. It is the objective of this work to understand the potentialities of combining systems biology approaches to these particular applications. A case study regarding the production of biodiesel precursors, namely triacylglycerols (TAGs), by Chlamydomonas reinhardtii, a single celled microalgae, was investigated as an example.