“A team led by Jay Keasling, a bioengineer at the Joint BioEnergy Institute in Emeryville, California, worked to extend the strategy to make more commonly used fuels. They used Escherichia coli, a bacterium into which it’s relatively easy to insert new genes. They started by creating two strains of E. coli, inserting genes for breaking down cellulose in one and genes for breaking down hemicellulose in the other. They then split each of these two strains into three groups and to each group added genes for one of three different metabolic pathways that allow the microbes to make chemical precursors for either gasoline, diesel, or jet fuel.”
Nice step towards making this happen.
