The conversion of light energy into useful hydrocarbons proceeds in three steps.  First, light is absorbed and used to drive phosphorylation; second, carbon is fixed to form simple sugars; and third, sugars are converted into complex carbohydrates and lipids.

The SMART BioPATH IRG will examine the science of each of these processes.  The questions we will answer are:

How does photosynthesis transfer energy from absorbed photons to the reaction centers with nearly 100% efficiency?

Project 1:  FUNDAMENTALS OF PHOTOSYNTHESIS:  LIGHT HARVESTING

What are the high molecular weight lipids (pigments, polar lipids and hydrocarbons) produced by photosynthetic and other microbes?  Many naturally occurring lipids have yet to be isolated and characterized.

Project 2:  FUNDAMENTALS OF CARBON STORAGE

How do genetic and environmental factors affect the diversity of hydrocarbons and other lipds produced by various microbes?

Project 3:  CONTROLLING LIPID METABOLISM

The answers to the above questions will inform the design of microbial strains and processes that produce abundance hydrocabons with specified purity and quality.

Translation of this physical, chemical and biological understanding will occur through

     1.  Development of scaled bioprocesses that exploit microbial photosynthesis or bioconversions of organic matter for fuels, high-value natural products andother specialty chemicals.

     2.  Develop novel plan cell based processes for efficient production of small molecule therapeutics.

     3.  Optimization of biomolecules for articicial photosynthesis.

Project 4:  TRANSLATIONAL SCIENCE AND ENGINEERING