PI Name: Jacqueline Shanks Institution: Iowa State University Proposal Number: 0938157
EFRI: EFRI-HyBi: Bioengineering a system for the direct production of biological hydrocarbons for biofuels
This award is funded under the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 (Public Law 111-5)
Intellectual merit: This project will develop new bio-engineering technology for transforming the current liquid fuel industry from using fossil-carbon feedstocks to using biorenewable feedstocks that are at the chemical level identical to gasoline and diesel fuels, namely biologically-generated hydrocarbons. The engineering system envisioned is a photosynthetic-based organism that will have the bio engineered ability to chemically-reduce atmospheric CO2 to simple hydrocarbons (e.g., n-alkanes and n-alkenes), using sunlight as the source of renewable energy. Such metabolic conversions are known to occur in discreet places in the biosphere, e.g., the epidermis of plants and insects, and as a carbon/energy-storage mechanism by certain algae. The goal is to conduct multidisciplinary studies that will identify the mechanisms and genetic elements that encode the biocatalyst(s) that generate these hydrocarbons in biological systems. The PIs will explore the use these isolated genetic elements to establish to bio-engineer crops or bioengineer photosynthetic microbes as the production platform to realize the vision of producing a biological hydrocarbon based fuel. The proposed research will for the first time lead to fundamental knowledge concerning the structure and mechanism of the biocatalyst that generates biological hydrocarbons. And, the efficient use of this novel biocatalyst in a production biological host will require the optimization of bioengineering principles so as to proficiently integrate the biocatalyst into a pre-existing metabolic network without compromising the biological competence of the host. These later optimizations will integrate concepts of biological control principles with engineering proficiencies.
Broader impacts: This project brings together a collaborative of biologists and engineers to demonstrate a paradigm of how fundamental molecular biological research can be integrated with disciplines of engineering to generate new bio-engineered organisms that can be used as a sustainable production platform to meet the global demands for new liquid biofuels. This multidisciplinary team-approach will be an ideal venue for training and educating new cadre of students and researchers of the synergy that is gained from the novel combination of biological and engineering research. This type of training, which integrates biological, genetic and biochemical research with quantitative engineering ad economic perspectives is increasingly important to meet the grand challenges of the 21st century, in which increased global population demands will tax the natural system's ability to maintain a sustainable human societal infrastructure. In this context, the PIs will foster an international collaborative (the International BioHydrocarbon Group) that will be a venue for trainee exchanges, which will provide students and post-docs an international perspective in their research-based training. In addition, they will incorporate an REU program that will recruit undergraduate students from institutions that serve primarily under-represented groups, and foster their scientific and engineering development through research-based education. Thus, the PIs will be able to exhibit within this project that meeting an emerging global challenge will demand new intellectual perspectives and solutions from the brightest young engineers and scientists, and these will need to be developed in an increasingly globally integrated manner. Hence, the dissemination of the combined research outcomes generated by the biological and engineering students and post-docs of the project will impact the respective training and education communities by setting precedence for optimally training and mentoring young investigators and thus transforming an emerging field.
