BOL

"In recently published paper (entitled "Microbial Production of Short-chain Alkanes") in Nature journal on September 29, a group of genius Korean researchers led by Distinguished Professor Sang Yup Lee of the Department of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering at the Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology (KAIST) reported, for the first time, the development of a novel strategy for microbial gasoline production through metabolic engineering of E. coli.

The research team engineered the fatty acid metabolism to provide the fatty acid derivatives that are shorter than normal intracellular fatty acid metabolites, and introduced a novel synthetic pathway for the biosynthesis of short-chain alkanes. This allowed the development of platform E. coli strain capable of producing gasoline for the first time. Furthermore, this platform strain, if desired, can be modified to produce other products such as short-chain fatty esters and short-chain fatty alcohols."

Find more at

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8KDXYMIgAi0

http://www.gbcghana.com/index.php?id=1.1550084

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2013/09/130929142737.htm

Paper:

http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/vaop/ncurrent/full/nature12536.html

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