Environmental biotechnology has entered a new era thanks to the analysis of complete genomes of many bacteria and the analytical capacity to measure transcription, protein abundance, and metabolic fluxes through systems biology approaches. On this background, and rooted on microbiology and biochemistry as foundational sciences, the activities of the SEM group aim at re-designing and engineering the metabolism of environmental bacteria for efficient bioproduction. To this end, our multidisciplinary work combines systems and synthetic biology approaches for metabolic engineering of Pseudomonas putida, a model, non-pathogenic soil bacterium endowed with unique properties for biotechnology applications.