Microalgal systems (such as the cyanobacteria we are working with, Synechococcus elongatus) are an order of magnitude more efficient at capturing carbon dioxide than land based plants. We are trying to engineer our microalgae to give up that captured carbon so we may use it in our other system. To do this, we are putting in a pump that will cause the cyanobacteria to excrete glucose.

This excreted glucose can then be used by our other bacterial system to produce products that can be used in the oil industry to improve oil extraction, products such as acetic acid.

Since both acetic acid and glucose are metabolized, “eaten,” by the very systems that we are trying to get to produce these products, we are using a scaffold to better steal the product away from the system. Just like with the glucose pump we also have an acetic acid pump. We are going to try and link the enzymes that produce glucose and acetic acid to their respective pump so the instant the product is produced it will be pumped out of the cell before the cell “eats” it.

Another product we are trying to produce is a biosurfactant.