University of Wisconsin receives $2 million grant for cyanobacteria research
In Wisconsin, a team of University of Wisconsin-Madison engineers aims to create a sustainable alternative source of commodity chemicals currently derived from an ever-decreasing supply of fossil fuel using cyanobacteria, carbon dioxide and sunlight. Funded through a $2 million grant from the National Science Foundation Emerging Frontiers in Research and Innovation program, the team will develop and evaluate a systems-level biorefinery strategy for using photosynthetic methods to produce chemical compounds.
Using cyanobacteria, which need only light, carbon dioxide and simple nutrients to thrive, Pfleger’s team is aiming for an even more efficient, sustainable outcome by engineering a fast-growing species of cyanobacteria to skip the intermediate processing step and directly produce model chemical compounds such as 3-hydroxypropionate, a precursor to acrylic acid.
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