Earth Protect Blog

LOS ANGELES -- Fuel may be a messy business now, as the oil spill fouling the Gulf reminds us.

But it might not always have to be. Scientists envision facilities that churn out black gold by enlisting engineered bacteria, yeast and algae to do all the dirty work.

Recently, scientists reported a significant step toward that futuristic goal: an engineered strain of the gut bacterium Escherichia coli that can make a diesel-like mixture of hydrocarbons.

The researchers, at South San Francisco-based biotech company LS9 Inc., created their biological hydrocarbon factory using genes from water-dwelling blue-green algae that naturally make tiny amounts of the fuel. They transplanted the genes into E. coli and, with a few more genetic tweaks, adjusted the bug's metabolism so it churned out 100 times more fuel than the algae did.

The finding, published in the journal Science, is the company's second announcement this year of a bacterium with fuel-production abilities.

"It's a very promising breakthrough," said Thomas Foust, a scientist at the National Renewable Energy Laboratory in Golden, Colo. Whether it will translate into a commercially successful product is another matter, he added - but he and others in the expanding field of "synthetic biology" are confident that sooner or later, something will.

In May, synthetic biology was brought into the national spotlight with the announcement of what many called "artificial life": Scientists at the J. Craig Venter Institute in La Jolla chemically synthesized a whole bacterial genome and inserted it into a cell. The genetic material took over and turned the cell into a new type of organism.

This advance caught the public's eye, and President Barack Obama's as well - he instructed his bioethics commission to investigate the implications of the research and other synthetic biology work.

Most synthetic biologists, however, are doing something a little less Frankenstein-sounding than that. They are plucking genes from plants, bacteria, insects and more to make cellular factories that produce fuels and other chemicals such as pigments, fragrances and drugs.

They are also working toward creating catalogs of standardized genetic pieces that future designers can draw upon to make bugs with properties that scientists need.

Geneticists began altering genes almost 40 years ago, but those now in the field say the term "synthetic biology" signifies a new engineering mentality being brought to the enterprise.

Original Article http://www.bellinghamherald.com/2010/08/09/1562770/biotech-offers-promise-for-producing.html