Unlocking Seaweed’s Next-Gen Crude: Sugar

The New York Times
January 23, 2012, 3:04 pm
By JOSIE GARTHWAITE

Seaweed often brings to mind thoughts of surf and sushi, not fuel. But that could change if a biotechnology start-up called Bio Architecture Lab succeeds in building a new kind of energy company from designer bacteria and a low-cost process for harvesting seaweed.

The key is a genetically modified strain of Escherichia coli bacterium, which can break down the sugars in brown seaweed, or macro-algae, to produce ethanol, according to new research published in the peer-reviewed journal Science.

As one of the 14 study authors, BAL’s co-founder and chief science officer, Yasuo Yoshikuni, explained in an interview by phone, “Sugar is the next-generation crude oil — it can go to fuels and chemicals.” BAL’s breakthrough, he says, is about finding a way to “unlock the sugars in seaweed.”

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