
Henrik Scheller (left) and Dominique Loque hold a tray of Arabidopsis Thaliana plants, which they used in their research. Credit: Berkeley Lab photo
Imagine being able to precisely control specific tissues of a plant to enhance desired traits without affecting the plant’s overall function.
Thus a rubber tree could be manipulated to produce more natural latex. Trees grown for wood could be made with higher lignin content, making for stronger yet lighter-weight lumber. Crops could be altered so that only the leaves and certain other tissues had more wax, thus enhancing the plant’s drought tolerance, while its roots and other functions were unaffected.
By manipulating a plant’s metabolic pathways, two scientists at the Department of Energy’s Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (Berkeley Lab), Henrik Scheller and Dominique Loqué, have figured out a way to genetically rewire plants to allow for an exceptionally high level of control over the spatial pattern of gene expression, while at the same time boosting expression to very high levels. Now they have launched a startup company called Afingen to apply this technology for developing low-cost biofuels that could be cost-competitive with gasoline and corn ethanol.
“With this tool we seem to have found a way to control very specifically what tissue or cell type expresses whatever we want to express,” said Scheller. “It’s a new way that people haven’t thought about to increase metabolic pathways. It could be for making more cell wall, for increasing the stress tolerance response in a specific tissue. We think there are many different applications.”
Cost-competitive biofuels
Afingen was awarded a Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) grant earlier this year for $1.72 million to engineer switchgrass plants that will contain 20 percent more fermentable sugar and 40 percent less lignin in selected structures. The grant was provided under a new SBIR program at DOE that combines an SBIR grant with an option to license a specific technology produced at a national laboratory or university through DOE-supported research.
“Techno-economic modeling done at (the Joint BioEnergy Institute, or JBEI) has shown that you would get a 23 percent reduction in the price of the biofuel with just a 20 percent reduction in lignin,” said Loqué. “If we could also increase the sugar content and make it easier to extract, that would reduce the price even further. But of course it also depends on the downstream efficiency.”
The Latest on: Artificial positive feedback loop
[google_news title=”” keyword=”Artificial positive feedback loop” num_posts=”10″ blurb_length=”0″ show_thumb=”left”]
via Google News
The Latest on: Artificial positive feedback loop
- Why Investors Are Bullish on EdTech in 2023on February 3, 2023 at 7:30 am
EdTech enables educators to reach more students than ever before with the ability to deliver content beyond the limitations of a language barrier or timezone. 2022 closed with 30 EdTech Unicorns ...
- Innovation v Regulation - how might the EU's AI Act affect the UK's own AI legislation?on February 3, 2023 at 7:04 am
Jacob Gatley reflects on reaction to the EU Artificial Intelligence Act and how it differs to the UK's current policy approach.
- Letter: Feedback loops and mother’s milkon January 29, 2023 at 5:03 pm
is theoretically sound in that the two systems support and reinforce each other in feedback loops whereby USD provides the space for citizens’ initiatives, the mother’s milk of MCE.
- Companies that change the game can change the worldon January 26, 2023 at 10:10 am
The companies that can do this best are what we call the game changers. Game changers address an exponential problem by using exponential technologies, developing exponential business models, and ...
- Type 2 diabetes: Artificial pancreas may soon be an optionon January 16, 2023 at 8:36 am
The artificial pancreas is a closed-loop system that consists of an insulin pump and glucose monitor, and they link to an app the researchers developed. By the end of the trial, the participants ...
- Artificial pancreas may help patients with Type 2 diabetes regulate blood sugaron January 16, 2023 at 1:02 am
An artificial pancreas has long been considered ... and we have shown that this way of delivering insulin with a closed-loop system is much more effective than their current insulin injections ...
- This Artificial Pancreas Treats Type 2 Diabetes Using Over-the-Counter Deviceson January 11, 2023 at 4:26 pm
The artificial pancreas uses over-the-counter devices like an insulin pump along with an app to automatically deliver insulin and regulate blood sugar levels. “This fully automated, closed-loop ...
- Type 2 Diabetes: An Artificial Pancreas May Help Improve Blood Sugar Levelson January 11, 2023 at 4:00 pm
A new study finds that an artificial pancreas may help people with ... New research suggests that fully closed-loop insulin therapy may help people with type 2 diabetes improve blood glucose ...
- Tipping Points In The Climate System: The Worst Kind Of Positive Feedbackon January 7, 2023 at 4:00 pm
Further compounding the issue are a variety of positive feedback loops that promise to further compound the problem. In these cases, initial warming has flow-on effects that then serve to further ...
- Topic: devops feedback loopson August 9, 2022 at 8:45 am
Perhaps this has been due to a lack of a practical application based on a focused understanding of feedback loops, and how to leverage them. We’ll look at Feedback Loops, the purposeful design ...
via Bing News