Yong-Su Jin

Scientists have found a way to boost ethanol production via yeast fermentation, a standard method for converting plant sugars into biofuels. Their approach, detailed in the journal Nature Communications, relies on careful timing and a tight division of labor among synthetic yeast strains to yield more ethanol per unit of plant sugars than previous approaches have achieved.

Scientists are becoming increasingly aware of how the human microbiome, or the collection of microbes the live on and inside of us, has a major connection to health and human physiology. Microbial engineering, which changes the structure of the microbiome through methods such as probiotics, antibiotics, and microbe transplants, has been found to be a useful strategy for improving human health, but the mechanisms underlying this improvement are still unclear and difficult to test.

Over the past few decades, it has become increasingly obvious that fossil fuels, such as coal, oil, and gas, are the biggest contributors to global climate change, accounting for over 75% of greenhouse emissions. If we want to avoid the catastrophic impacts of climate change, these emissions need to be reduced by almost half by 2030 and reach net zero by 2050. This goal can only be achieved if we invest in alternative sources of energy that are sustainable and reliable, a realization that led to the establishment of the Energy Biosciences Institute.

Over the years, the democratization of synthetic biology for the production of food has led to products like the Impossible burger, a burger impostor that uses plant tissues instead of meat. Despite this, food companies remain hesitant to utilize synthetic biology due to concerns with genetically modified foods.

The quest to satisfy the sweet tooth without adding to the waistline has a new weapon in its arsenal: a strain of yeast that can metabolize lactose, the sugar in dairy products, into tagatose, a natural sweetener with less than half the calories of table sugar.

Much like human society, microbial communities have a division of labor. In these complex groups of microorganisms, different microbes are responsible for different tasks, such as the organization or delivery of cell functions.