Engineering biology for sustainable 1,4-butanediol synthesis

Over the past decade, numerous approaches have been taken to replace unsustainable chemical syntheses with green biosynthetic alternatives. In a landmark paper, Yim et al. utilised an in silico-to-in vivo workflow to enable the high-level bioproduction of the unnatural small molecule 1,4-butanediol in the bacterium Escherichia coli.