A National Academies Keck Futures Initiative award of $100,000 will help researchers from Oak Ridge National Laboratory and State University of New York in their quest to create a yeast strain to produce biofuels. ORNL's Miguel Fuentes-Cabrera and SUNY's Qing Lin are looking at exporting two bacterial micro-compartments, Eut and Pdu, into yeast to create a biofuel-producing yeast strain. Eut and Pdu produce acetaldehyde, an indispensable intermediate in the production of biofuels such as ethanol and fatty acids. The scientists believe that this would make it possible to increase the yield of biofuels by encapsulating acetaldehyde, a volatile and toxic organic compound in the nano-sized micro-compartments. This was one of 13 projects chosen for awards in the area of synthetic biology, the theme of this year's Futures conference.
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