Genetically modified yeast could boost biofuels

Yeast produces alcohol as a by-product of its own metabolism, which can then be used as a replacement for petroleum. But yeast is also poisoned by this alcohol. As well as limiting the amount of alcohol in drinks made without distillation, this limitation restricts the efficiency of biofuel production, which converts corn or plant waste into ethanol. "The fact is that science had run out of methods to increase alcohol tolerance," says Greg Stephanopoulos, a chemical engineer at MIT in the US. Conventional genetic modification techniques involve altering one gene at a time, and have been ineffective because alcohol tolerance is the product of many genes working together, he explains. Stephanopoulos and colleagues at MIT and the Whitehead Institute for Biomedical Research, also in Massachusetts, US, solved this by altering a gene that controls the activity of many others.......... Whole article: "www.newscientisttech.com":[ http://www.newscientisttech.com/article/dn10751-genetically-modified-yeast-could-boost-biofuels.html]

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