Teaching a Microbe to Make Fuel
by David L. Chandler (MIT News) Genetically modified organism could turn carbon dioxide or waste products into a gasoline-compatible transportation fuel.
A humble soil bacterium called Ralstonia eutrophahas a natural tendency, whenever it is stressed, to stop growing and put all its energy into making complex carbon compounds. Now scientists at MIT have taught this microbe a new trick: They’ve tinkered with its genes to persuade it to make fuel — specifically, a kind of alcohol called isobutanol that can be directly substituted for, or blended with, gasoline.
Christopher Brigham, a research scientist in MIT’s biology department who has been working to develop this bioengineered bacterium, is currently trying to get the organism to use a stream of carbon dioxide as its source of carbon, so that it could be used to make fuel out of emissions. Brigham is co-author of a paper on this research published this month in the journal Applied Microbiology and Biotechnology. READ MORE Abstract
