Glycos Biotechnologies, Inc., an emerging biochemical company leveraging metabolic and microbial engineering (earlier post), has developed what it says is the first microbial platform for the efficient synthesis of biofuels and biochemicals from fatty acids. The research was done in collaboration with GlycosBio’s Scientific Advisory Board Chairman Prof. Ramon Gonzalez and his group at Rice University. The results were recently published in the journal Applied and Environmental Microbiology.

While cellulosic sugars from edible crops (e.g., corn) have been used as the primary feedstock in the biological production of renewable fuels and chemicals, concern over the sustainability has caused the industry to look for alternative feedstock sources. While nonedible lignocellulosic sugars have been proposed as a primary feedstock, the availability of fatty acid (FA)-rich feedstocks and recent progress in the development of oil-accumulating organisms make FAs an attractive alternative.