Sheila Ingemann Jensen
Senior Researcher
Novo Nordisk Foundation Center for Biosustainability, Technical University of Denmark, Kongens Lyngby
Biography
The group focuses on bacterial molecular biology for producing biochemicals from renewable resources, emphasizing sustainable substrates like lignocellulosic biomass waste and CO₂ derivatives. The work involves developing broad-host range and species-specific molecular tools to accelerate strain engineering for both established and novel bacterial cell factories, including isolates from nature or strain repositories. Researchers have isolated many bacterial species with unique traits, but fully harnessing microbial diversity for sustainable solutions requires engineering tools. While transformation protocols exist for some bacteria, most genetic tools are developed for a few model organisms. The group develops tools to domesticate non-traditional bacteria, enabling efficient cell factories for producing value-added chemicals from sustainable resources. Methods include isolating, sequencing, and characterizing novel bacteria and creating molecular toolboxes with transformation protocols
