Audio Interviews

MTS51- James Liao - Turning Microbes into Fuel Refineries

In this podcast I talk to James Liao, a professor in the Department of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering at UCLA. I spoke to Dr. Liao about his research into engineering microbes to make fuel.

Today, we get most of the fuel for our cars out of the ground. It's a process fraught with dangerous consequences, from the oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico to the rise in global temperatures thanks to greenhouse gases. Dr. Liao is among a growing number of scientists who think that microbes can help us out of this predicament.

We talked about the attraction of microbe-derived fuels, and the challenges of getting bacteria to turn air, water, and sun into something that can power your car.

Selected Publications:

• Atsumi, S.; T. Hanai and J.C. Liao (2008) Non-Fermentative Pathways for Synthesis of Branched-Chain Higher Alcohols as Biofuels, Nature, 451:86-89.
• Engineering the isobutanol biosynthetic pathway in Escherichia coli by comparison of three aldehyde reductase/alcohol dehydrogenase genes
• Atsumi,S.; Higashide, W.; and Liao, J.C. (2009) Direct recycling of carbon dioxide to isobutyraldehyde using photosynthesis, Nat Biotechnol, 27, 1177-1180
• An integrated network approach identifies the isobutanol response network of Escherichia coli

Download: mp3 (38.5 min | 35.5 megs)