Researchers Funded by the DOE "Genomes to Life" Program Achieve
Important Advance in Developing Biological Strategies to Produce Hydrogen,
Sequester Carbon Dioxide and Clean up the Environment
November 13, 2003
WASHINGTON, DC – Secretary of Energy Spencer Abraham announced today
that Department of Energy-funded researchers have achieved a significant scientific
advance in their efforts to piece together DNA strands, thereby helping develop
new, biological methods to capture carbon dioxide from the atmosphere, produce
hydrogen and clean the environment.
Joined by J. Craig Venter, Ph.D., head of the Institute for Biological Energy
Alternatives (IBEA), Abraham announced that the IBEA has succeeded in stitching
together a genome of a phage, or a virus of bacteria. An article by Dr. Venter
and his IBEA colleagues describing their accomplishment is in press with the
Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.
“Researchers have made an exciting scientific advance that may speed
our ability to develop biology-based solutions for some of our most pressing
energy and environmental challenges,” Secretary Abraham said. IBEA scientists
have assembled more than 5,000 bases or building blocks of DNA to create a
small artificial virus, a so-called phage that infects bacteria. Bacteriophages
do not infect humans. This advance brings us closer to our goal of creating
entire microbes that are 100 to 1,000-times larger than the artificial virus
created so far.
“With this advance,” Abraham said, “it is easier to imagine,
in the not-too-distant future, a colony of specially designed microbes living
within the emission-control system of a coal-fired plant, consuming its pollution
and its carbon dioxide, or employing microbes to radically reduce water pollution
or to reduce the toxic effects of radioactive waste.”
Dr. Venter, Dr. Hamilton Smith, who was awarded the 1978 Nobel Prize in Physiology,
and their IBEA colleagues synthesized a bacteriophage genome from commercially
available materials and created an active phage, a harmless microscopic life
form that infects bacteria. The researchers accomplished this in 14 days,
from start to finish, reducing the time required to synthesize such a microbe
from many months, even years to days. This research project is based on principles
of molecular biology that have been used and developed in thousands of laboratories
around the world over the past 30 years.
In September 2002, the Department of Energy (DOE) awarded a three-year, $3
million grant to IBEA to develop a synthetic genome, as part of IBEA’s
efforts to use biology and genetics to reduce the amount of carbon dioxide
released into the atmosphere and to produce biological energy sources that
are cost-effective and efficient.
In April 2003, the Department of Energy announced it was increasing its funding
to IBEA by $9 million over three years. With the new funds, IBEA scientists
will determine the genetic sequences of all the micro-organisms occurring
in a natural microbial community. The studies will enable scientists to discover
biochemical pathways and organisms that may lead to the development of new
methods for carbon sequestration or alternative energy production.
“This research is a next logical step in the efforts to understand
the key elements that comprise a biological system,” Secretary Abraham
said. “This is a major goal of the biological research carried on by
the Nation’s major public and private research organizations –
including the National Science Foundation, the National Institutes of Health
and the Department of Energy’s Office of Science. The Biological and
Environmental Research program office of DOE’s Office of Science funds
the IBEA research as part of the Genomes to Life program.”
“What’s more, the future applications of this research go far
beyond DOE,” Abraham said, noting such benefits could include the development
of better vaccines and safer strategies for gene therapy; improving agricultural
crop yields that are better disease resistance and improving strategies for
combating agricultural diseases; and even enhancing our ability to detect
and defeat potential biothreat agents which is important to homeland security.
Abraham also announced that he is creating a special subcommittee of the
department’s Biological and Environmental Research Advisory Committee
to conduct a thorough review of IBEA’s research and to recommend ways
to accelerate this research and identify the full range of potential benefits
to energy missions as well as other areas of vital importance. The new subcommittee
will be chaired by Dr. Ray Gesteland, vice president of research and professor
of genetics at the University of Utah.
DOE’s Genomes to Life program aims to use the department's unique computational
capabilities and research facilities to understand the activities of single-cell
organisms on three levels: the proteins and multi-molecular machines that
perform most of the cell's work; the gene regulatory networks that control
these processes; and microbial associations or communities in which groups
of different microbes carry out fundamental functions in nature. Once researchers
understand how life functions at the microbial level, they hope to use the
capabilities of these organisms to help meet many of our national challenges
in energy and the environment. The program will combine research in biology,
engineering and computation with the development of novel facilities for high-throughput
biology projects. More information on the Genomes to Life program is on the
Web at genomicscience.energy.gov.
Located in Rockville, Md, the Institute for Biological Energy Alternatives
is a nonprofit, research-based institution dedicated to exploring solutions
for carbon sequestration using microbes, microbial pathways and plants. For
example, genomics could be applied to enhance the ability of terrestrial and
oceanic microbial communities to remove carbon from the atmosphere. IBEA will
develop and use microbial pathways and microbial metabolism to produce fuels
with higher energy content in an environmentally sound fashion. IBEA will
undertake genome engineering to better understand the evolution of cellular
life and how these cell components function together in a living system. More
information on IBEA is available at www.bioenergyalts.org.
See also Secretary Abraham's Remarks
Media Contact(s):
Jeff Sherwood (DOE), 202/586-5806
Heather Kowalski (IBEA), 301/309-3444
Number: R-03-265
For more information, see the following published articles (may require
subscription or registration)
Synthetic Genome Has Potential Value for Energy and Environment
Genome News Network, November 14, 2003
Generating
a synthetic genome by whole genome assembly: X174 bacteriophage
from synthetic oligonucleotides
PNAS, December 23, 2003
