Chromatin produces farnesene directly from sorghum

In Illinois, Chromatin announced that it has created sorghum plants containing elevated levels of the energy-rich compound farnesene. This milestone achievement was supported in part by the Department of Energy’s ARPA-E program Plants Engineered To Replace Oil (PETRO). Chromatin’s scientific team, led by Ramesh Nair, presented the work today at the 2014 ARPA-E Energy Innovation Summit.

Like sugarcane, sorghum has traditionally been used as a source of sugars that can be subsequently converted to biofuels by microbes. By creating farnesene within sorghum, it becomes possible to bypass expensive microbial fermentation and directly harvest biofuels from the crop itself.