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Bacteria Ready to Make Plastic From Sugar

Eric Bland, Discovery News

Still, cells are notorious for evolving unwanted traits, like the rise of drug resistant bacteria and cancers. Schilling said they plan to tap into that evolutionary bent and turn it into profit.

"We have ways to essentially accelerate [evolution], so the bacteria can evolve to tolerate higher concentrations of BDO and not in the exact way we would have predicted with the computer models," said Schilling.

Genomatica will make the E. coli, but not at the plants where the BDO is produced. Instead, the company will license the genetically engineered E. coli to companies worldwide who create BDO-based products. The company can even custom design E. coli that take advantage of local sugar variations. The first pilot plant is set for next year, according to Genomatica.

Next year might be a bit ambitious, suggested Harvey Blanch, a professor of chemical engineering at the University of California, Berkeley. Blanch said a longer time line, as in a couple of years, was more likely, but that he was still quite excited by the development.

"This is a very interesting opportunity to get a new source of raw materials that could replace chemical processing with biological engineering," said Blanch. "Using this technique everything from new kinds of plastics to jet fuel could be produced with less energy and smaller environmental costs."

Genomatica hopes that bio-BDO is just the first of these new raw materials. Currently, the company is pursuing more than six other unspecified chemicals, all of which have a larger market than the $4 billion annual BDO market.

"What gets us really excited is that this opens up the door to go after other chemicals that aren't produced in nature," said Schilling.

Related Links:

How Stuff Works: E. Coli

Genomatica

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