About This Lesson
Ideally, biofuels should be chemically identical to the fossil fuels we need to replace, which include hydrocarbons of various lengths. To accomplish this, scientists from the University of Exeter started with common bacteria, E. coli. Then they took genes from the camphor tree, soil bacteria, and blue‑green algae and spliced them into the DNA of the E. coli. These genes make enzymes that convert fatty acids that bacteria normally produce into hydrocarbons chemically identical to those in commercial fuel.
