Turning Bacteria into Plastic Factories and Replacing Fossil Fuels

Escherichia coli (E. coli) can give you a severe case of food poisoning or, with a little genetic engineering, a useful plastic. Scientists at San Diego–based Genomatica, Inc., have announced success in manipulating the bacteria to directly produce butanediol (BDO), a chemical compound used to make everything from spandex to car bumpers, thereby providing a more energy efficient way of making it without oil or natural gas. [More]

Read the whole article on Scientific American

More from Scientific American