Lighting the Way to Bioproducts: Smart Microbial Biosensors for Conversion Pathway Design

by Babetta (Babs) Marrone (Los Alamos National Laboratory) For several years, Los Alamos National Laboratory (LANL) scientists have been taking advantage of the molecular tools that naturally reside within microbial cells. Although microbes use these tools to carry out their metabolism and other life-sustaining processes, scientists can use these tools to produce fuel precursors and bioproduct building blocks. Today, researchers at LANL are further improving this process by adding a biosensor to the microbes that will use light to tell them how efficiently the product is made—thus enabling the researchers to identify cells with increased overall yield. READ MORE