This award supports a three-year collaborative research project between Professor Gregory Stephanopoulos of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) and Professor Kazuhisa Ohtaguchi of the Tokyo Institute of Technology in Japan. The researchers will be undertaking a study of metabolic engineering of carbon fixation and utilization by cyanobacteria. Cyanobacteria have evolved efficient pathways for the fixation of carbon dioxide and its conversion to various metabolites. This property can be exploited in processes for the biological CO2 sequestration in combination with the production of useful products. The general objective is to test the hypothesis that increasing the intrinsic carbon utilization rate can drive similar increases in CO2 fixation rates. The goals of the project are: 1) to establish transformed strains of cyanobacteria with increase PHA production levels and 2) to carry out basic kinetic studies of CO2 fixation and PHA formation in batch as well as continuous culture systems for wild type and transformed cyanobacteria strains.
The project brings together the efforts of two laboratories that have complementary expertise and research capabilities. It is anticipated that the research will contribute to the development of a platform for the production of chemical products from an essentially free raw material -- atmospheric carbon dioxide. The chemical industry has an acute interest in agricultural means for the production of specialty and commodity chemicals, and this research could impact in a profound way the technological base that could be used towards this goal. The project advances international human resources through the participation of postdoc and graduate students. Through the exchange of ideas and technology, this project will broaden our base of basic knowledge and promote international understanding and cooperation. Results of the research will be published in international scientific journals and also presented at scientific meetings in the U.S. and abroad.
