| Project Detail |
The University of Washington (UW) seeks to develop new photosynthetic systems that use sunlight from previously underutilized or inaccessible regions of the solar spectrum to produce chemicals and fuels. The UW team will use de novo-protein design (a computational approach to design proteins from scratch, rather than using a known protein structure) to modify photosynthetic light harvesting machinery for a broader spectrum, allowing more energy to be translated from light to chemical energy. If successful, this project would enable biofuel and bioproduct generation from near-infrared (NIR) light in cyanobacteria, algae, and plants, showing that it is possible to reengineer the light-harvesting reactions foundational to natural photosynthesis. It is a pathway to more extensive modifications for optimizing bioeconomy feedstock crop production.
Potential Impact:
By creating proteins capable of absorbing solar energy in NIR light and converting it to chemical energy, UW’s goal could significantly increase biomass production in photosynthetic organisms. |
