This document provides an overview of metabolic engineering. It defines metabolic engineering as the alteration of genetic components or flux in an organism to achieve a desired phenotype or product through modifying biochemical reactions or introducing new pathways using recombinant DNA technology. The history section outlines some early work in metabolic engineering in the 1980s-1990s, including modifying bacteria to produce various chemicals and improving growth properties. The document also discusses various approaches that have been developed for metabolic engineering, such as global transcription machinery engineering and using various omics techniques to analyze cellular processes.