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November 13, 2003
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
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 www.doegenomestolife.org.
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.
Secretary Abraham's Remarks
Media Contact(s):
Jeff Sherwood (DOE), 202/586-5806
Heather Kowalski (IBEA), 301/309-3444
Number: R-03-265
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