'Hybrid' processing strategies for expanding and improving the synthesis of renewable bioproducts

The versatile functionality of microbial biocatalysts offers a promising solution to the growing need to replace conventional, petroleum-derived fuels, chemicals, and materials with sustainable alternatives from renewable biomass. Whereas metabolic pathway engineering and strain optimization have greatly expanded the range of attainable bioproducts, it is by coupling microbial biosynthesis with traditional chemical conversions that the diversity of products that can ultimately be derived from biomass is truly beginning to reach its full potential. As will be the focus of this short review, such 'hybrid' strategies are now facilitating the generation of new and useful value-added bioproducts from renewable sources, the likes of which have previously been unattainable via biological routes alone.