Microscopic objects (microbes) may lead to large pollution solution

[OKIsItJustMe]

http://features.csmonitor.com/innovation/2009/03/05/microscopic-objects-may-lead-to-large-pollution-solution/

Microscopic objects may lead to large pollution solution

Column: These itty-bitty microbes are the most sophisticated chemists on Earth.

By Robert C. Cowen | Columnist for The Christian Science Monitor/ March 5, 2009 edition

Scientists are forging a new partnership with bacteria. They call it metabolic engineering. Microbes are the most sophisticated chemists on Earth. We have used them for thousands of years to make fermented foods and, more recently, in some chemical manufacturing processes. Now microbial scientists want to carry that partnership to a new level. They are gaining a deeper understanding of microbes’ metabolic chemical skills with an eye to using those skills more effectively, and even reengineering them, to serve human purposes. These include making biofuels, cleaning up pollutants, even removing CO2 from the air.

Reports of research from two universities last month reflect that ambition. Kristala Prather at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology summed up these efforts succinctly, saying, “We’re trying to ask what kinds of things should we be trying to make, and looking for possible routes in nature to make them.”

Professor Prather is developing bacteria to turn agricultural byproducts into butanol and pentanol for biofuel. Her colleague Gregory Stephanopoulos is trying to engineer bacteria that can better tolerate toxins that accompany the fuel-producing fermentation.

…

Meanwhile, MIT’s Catherine Drennan is working with bacteria that break down carbon monoxide and carbon dioxide. Some of them break down an estimated 1 billion tons of carbon monoxide in the environment each year, according to scientists at MIT. Professor Drennan wonders, “Can we use this chemistry to do the same thing?” That means understanding the nitty-gritty of how the bacteria’s chemistry works. Her team hopes to gain that understanding by deciphering the exact structure of the enzymes involved.

…

[Gregorian]

1. It may be our only solution.

Interesting. I'm highly unoptimistic that people are going to make any significant changes. And yet something must be done. This is probably the direction it will go.

As hideous as things are, it's an interesting time.

[Muttocracy]

2. I remember reading the "Nature Did It First" section of Ranger Rick as a kid

or it was called something like that. Nature really has done a lot of experimental work already!