Genetically Engineered Stomach Microbe Converts Seaweed into Ethanol
A genetically modified strain of common gut bacteria may lead to a new technology for making biofuels that does not compete with food crops for arable acreage
http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=genetically-engineered-stomach-microbe-turns-seaweed-into-ethanol
I am able to put my finger on what has shifted in my noggin over the years. Back in the late ’90’s biotech was my sole focus (why I started sol-biotech.com, incorporated Sol Biotech Inc. and invested over $20K in laboratory equipment) and when we were living in North Carolina I had actually started to do preliminary work (primarily reestablishing my bench skills, I was amazed at how thoroughly my skills had deteriorated), but once we moved back to the DC Metropolitan Rat Hole I was never able to re-establish myself. Back in North Carolina I had created a business plan to fabricate molecular scale computing devices, but was unable to get anyone interested, perhaps that is a contributing factor. However, my thesis in graduate school (for a year I double Mastered in the MBA program as well as the Biochemistry program) was to design an enzyme from first principles (I won’t bore you with the details of the problems that lead me to abandon the work, except to note that I have subsequently come up with avenues that might lead to success) and I had strong plans to establish myself as a purveyor of custom designed industrial proteins and enzymes. Though I have noted that the state-of-the-art has far and away failed to keep pace with my expectations (meaning there doesn’t seem to be anyone else making industrial enzymes from scratch), I am not sure if that is because the problem is too hard (but clearly not impossible, that I am writing this and you are reading this is absolute proof that it is possible) or if there simply hasn’t been the focus necessary to commercialize the technology (I lean toward the latter, but have been out of the literature for the better part of a decade). Doing stuff like popping genes into e.coli used to be my bread and butter and while I am sure my lab bench skills have deteriorated to the point it would probably take a few months to get up to speed, I do have that lab in my basement I could be doing work in each evening.
I have confused myself. Maybe the lack of success builds on top of itself and I clearly remember long periods of depression after we moved back to the rat hole that were associated with my research interests and perhaps as some form of self protection I have engineered myself to not think about the subject any more (well, I have had many fewer periods of depression since then, so perhaps this captures part of the issue). I am not sure how to remedy the situation (indeed, I find myself lacking interest or energy to even consider the idea of remedy-ing the situation). Even thinking about it now my mind seems to skitter away from the subject and this is even my second attempt to write a blog post about the topic (the first one got deleted).
Oh well, back to aquaponics and proton-boron tabletop fusion…
