At its heart, LanzaTech is a cutting-edge synthetic biology or \u201cSynBio\u201d venture. According to Wikipedia<\/a>, SynBio is \u201c\u2026a multidisciplinary area of research that seeks to create new biological parts, devices, and systems, or to redesign systems that are already found in nature.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n As a generalist, your correspondent tends to shy away from SynBio companies. A few years ago, I dabbled with one \u2013 a company recently in the news due to its\u00a0September 17 IPO via SPAC<\/a>,\u00a0Ginkgo Bioworks<\/a>. I ended up losing interest in the company because the application of its technology seemed so trivial \u2013 at the time I looked at the firm, it was mostly producing perfume fragrances.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n (My original assessment of Ginkgo turned out not to be completely accurate, according to this\u00a0New York Times article<\/a>. Ginkgo\u2019s biological foundry apparently helped design genes that sped development of Moderna\u2019s Covid-19 vaccine. Now that I understand more about the SynBio process, I may go back and take a closer look at Boston-based Ginkgo.)<\/p>\n\n\n\n Because the work that LanzaTech does \u2013 sequestering waste carbon from steel manufacturing and other high carbon footprint activities and creating industrial chemicals with it \u2013 is so important to the world in terms of maintaining quality of life in a post-fossil carbon world, I wanted to dig in to understand what was under the hood.<\/p>\n\n\n\n This article describes what is under LanzaTech\u2019s hood in layman\u2019s terms and more generally what kind of work goes on in a SynBio company.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Innovation turns up in some unusual places, but it\u2019s hard to think of a place more unusual than rabbit droppings.<\/p>\n\n\n\n In 1994, scientists described<\/a> an anaerobic (i.e., cannot survive exposure to oxygen) bacteria (Clostridium autoethanogenum<\/em>), present in rabbit droppings, that takes in carbon monoxide or carbon dioxide and hydrogen as food and metabolizes them into ethanol<\/a> in much the same way yeast metabolizes sugars into alcohol.<\/p>\n\n\n\n As molecules go, ethanol is an attractive one. Its backbone is made up of two carbon atoms; dangling off one of those carbons are three hydrogens, dangling off the other are two hydrogens and a hydroxide molecule (a hydrogen atom bound to an oxygen atom).<\/p>\n\n\n\n The careful reader will note that except for that oxygen atom, ethanol is made up of hydrogen and carbon, which are the elements in those enormously useful molecules that oil and gas companies spend so much time and energy digging up \u2013 hydrocarbons.<\/p>\n\n\n\n LanzaTech\u2019s co-founder, Dr. Sean Simpson\u2019s vision was two-fold. First, he thought that there should be a way to engineer a process by which huge colonies of C. autoethanogenum<\/em> might be bred and their activity harnessed to produce commercial quantities of sustainable ethanol solely from above-ground carbon sources.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Second, he thought that if an ethanol-producing system could be designed, it should also be possible to genetically modify bacteria and breed colonies that could sustainably produce other hydrocarbons in commercial quantities as well.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The way in which that first vision has played out will be covered in my next article focusing on LanzaTech\u2019s engineering. <\/p>\n\n\n\n The way in which that second vision has played out is a scientific miracle, involving alterations of the bacteria\u2019s genetic instructions governing its metabolism.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The process of metabolism is carried out through the action of a globular proteins known as enzymes. \u00a0Enzymes speed (or \u201ccatalyze\u201d) chemical reactions within a cell and otherwise regulate biochemical processes. For almost every reaction within a cell to be carried out, a specific enzyme must act as a catalyst.<\/p>\n\n\n\n By loading the video, you agree to YouTube’s privacy policy.LanzaTech SynBio Breakthroughs<\/strong><\/h3>\n\n\n\n
![\"Ethanol-3D-balls\"\/](\"https:\/\/thumbor.forbes.com\/thumbor\/960x0\/https%3A%2F%2Fspecials-images.forbesimg.com%2Fimageserve%2F614caad62fb4696d7fa2a14f%2FEthanol-3D-balls%2F960x0.png%3Ffit%3Dscale\")
Ball-and-stick diagram of Ethanol. Black balls represent carbon atoms, white ones, hydrogen, and the\u00a0red one is oxygen.
Wikipedia.org<\/small><\/figcaption><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n![\"YouTube\"](\"https:\/\/renewable-carbon.eu\/news\/wp-content\/plugins\/borlabs-cookie\/assets\/images\/cb-no-thumbnail.png\")
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