SoylentNews is people
SoylentNews
As climate change continues to do more damage to our planet, scientists are working to find more efficient and cleaner ways to power the earth. One appealing alternative to common petrochemical processes that generate significant greenhouse gases and other waste products could come from biological systems.
Recent work from Northwestern Engineering's Michael Jewett and researchers from the University of Texas at Austin has led to advances in understanding of biochemical pathways and increased rates of chemical production by biological systems. The findings could bring us closer to implementing sustainable alternatives to synthesizing materials, fuels, and other oil-derived products.
The paper [...] describes the development of optimized in vitro biosynthesis (biochemical production) processes that use cell extracts from engineered strains of Saccharomyces cerevisiae (brewer's yeast).
[...] Decades of metabolic studies and genetic tool development make S. cerevisiae a highly controllable framework for biochemical production. Beyond historical applications in baking and brewing, this yeast has been engineered to produce innumerable target molecules used in industrial and therapeutic applications.
However, cellular production systems have an internal tug-of-war between making more cells and making the engineered product. Jewett's group avoids these growth and viability constraints by breaking the biological machinery out of cells and using the extracted material for cell-free biochemical reactions, which enables the optimization of levers that are not easily tuned in living cells.
Journal Reference:
Blake J. Rasor, Xiunan Yi, Hunter Brown, et al. An integrated in vivo/in vitro framework to enhance cell-free biosynthesis with metabolically rewired yeast extracts [open], Nature Communications (DOI: 10.1038/s41467-021-25233-y)
(Score: 2) by HiThere on Saturday August 28 2021, @03:24PM
The thing is, there are costs in doing things "outside the cell", two of which are "the cell isn't controlling the reaction", and "things which worked really well as small scale, don't work as well at larger scale".
OTOH, their point about the cell wanting to keep its own machinery working is certainly valid.
IIUC, we really still don't understand lots of things about fluid reactions at the micro interface with surfaces, and they'll need to develop working understanding in that area.
Javascript is what you use to allow unknown third parties to run software you have no idea about on your computer.
(Score: -1, Flamebait) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday August 28 2021, @04:34PM
Wait, what? Let's put the responsibility where it lies.
Should read:
"As humans continue to do more damage to their planet..."
FTFY