The cell-free systems approach outlined in the proposal starts by lysing pre-optimized cells from selected strains, and then working with the lysates from these strains to express genes and pathways of interest in cell-free platforms (CFPS) which can be mixed in cocktails of varying ratios for easily and rapidly characterizing novel and improved pathways, speeding up the “build” and “test” portion of the design-build-test (DBT) cycle. (Diagram: Mike Jewett)