BIOFUELS, PLASTIC, BIODEGRADABLE FABRIC: Bacteria are chemical factories

Bacteria. In our body there are ten times more bacteria than human cells. This data would be sufficient to custionar be as dangerous as usually thought. Among other things, we have a symbiotic relationship (association), we will provide them shelter and food and assure them, in turn, help us to avoid taking up harmful bacteria and throw us a hand in digesting certain foods or nutrients that give us even we are not able to acquire.

Biochemistry. The chemical engineer Kristal Jones Prather sees the bacteria as "chemical factories" as diverse and complex, at least potentially, can develop better biofuels and biodegradable plastics and fabrics. She and Gregory Stephanopoulos, professor of chemical engineering at MIT, are trying to create bacteria that produce biofuels and other compounds more efficiently, while Professor Catherine Drennan of chemistry expected that the bacteria may some day help clean up pollutants such as carbon monoxide carbon and carbon dioxide from the atmosphere.

Instead of using bacteria to produce products, Drennan is exploring how they can degrade, especially carbon monoxide, carbon dioxide and other air pollutants

Present in virtually all habitats on Earth, bacteria produce numerous chemical compounds. Some synthesize valuable products for humans, such as biofuels, plastics and pharmaceuticals, while others decompose pollutants. Most of them depend on carbon compounds as energy source, but the species differ greatly from each other in their metabolic processes.

The engineers in the bacterial metabolism are learning to take advantage of these processes, the production of biofuels is an area of great interest. At MIT, Prather is developing bacteria that can produce fuels such as butanol and Pentanol from agricultural byproducts, and Stephanopoulos is trying to do better microbial producers of biofuels through the strategy of improving its resistance to the toxicity of the materials and fermented of substances that produce them.

The rise in oil prices and increasing emissions of greenhouse gases have accelerated the scientific search for better methods of producing biofuels and other chemical compounds such as bioplastics. Plastics and fabrics used to produce bacteria can consume much less energy than traditional manufacturing processes, because most of the industrial chemical reactions requiring high temperatures and pressures (which in turn require much energy to obtain). Bacteria, however, proliferate normally about 30 degrees Celsius and standard atmospheric pressure.

Metabolic engineering involves not only creating new products but also develop more efficient ways of producing existing compounds. Recently, the laboratory Prather, combining genes from plants, yeasts and bacteria, was able to develop a new method to synthesize glucárico acid, a compound with many uses, from nylon to the synthesis of water treatment. Prather is also working on bacteria that transform initial glucose and other simple compounds into products that can be used to produce biodegradable plastics such as PHA.

Stephanopoulos in the laboratory, researchers are developing new ways to produce biodiesel and other products that include the amino acid tyrosine (a component of some drugs and food additives), and biopolymer hyaluronic acid, a natural lubricant that can be used for the treatment of arthritis. Instead of using bacteria to produce products, Drennan is exploring how they can degrade, especially carbon monoxide, carbon dioxide and other air pollutants.

Microbes with which it works Drennan, who are in a wide variety of habitats, including freshwater, thermal springs, they absorb carbon dioxide and / or carbon monoxide, and used to produce energy. These germs removed from the environment an amount of carbon monoxide estimated one billion tons. Drennan and his colleagues are using the X-ray crystallography to determine how active the enzymes of these bacteria. Such knowledge could lead to the development of catalysts to reduce carbon monoxide levels in highly contaminated areas.