PNNL researchers determining best environment for cyanobacteria yields

In Washington state, rapidly growing bacteria that live in the ocean and can manufacture their own food hold promise as host organisms for producing chemicals, biofuels and medicine. Researchers at Pacific Northwest National Laboratory (PNNL) and The Pennsylvania State Univ. are closely studying one of these photosynthetic species of fast-growing cyanobacteria using advanced tools developed at PNNL to determine the optimum environment that contributes to record growth and productivity. Their work on how the cyanobacteria respond to different wavelengths of light, as critical resources, recently was featured in Frontiers in Microbiology.