| The offspring of Jay Keasling's synthetic biology | | | | You have a designer fuel. And being hydrocarbons |
| research and vision, Emeryville, CA-based Amyris | | | | with properties similar to gasoline, terpenes do not |
| Biotechnologies has made a double impact. First, the | | | | suffer from the limitations that alcohols (particularly |
| company, with more than $40 million of backing from | | | | ethanol) have as fuels. If you want to put something |
| the Bill Gates' Institute for One World Health charity, | | | | into your gas tank or jet engine, a designer |
| developed a microbial route to the anti-malarial | | | | hydrocarbon is likely to be superior to any alcohol. At |
| compound artemisinin. In and of itself this work was | | | | least that is what Amyris argues. |
| a stunningly successful scientific achievement, and the | | | | Amyris has the backing of a well-heeled group of |
| resulting process has been licensed to Sanofi-Aventis | | | | VCs: Kleiner Perkins, TPG Biotech, and DAG Ventures. |
| for low-cost manufacturing and distribution in the | | | | In the area of bio-based production of gasoline-like |
| third world. | | | | fuels, Amyris is at the head of the class. Economics |
| But how does that relate to biofuels? Well, producing | | | | remain to be proven, but Amyris has formed a joint |
| the anti-malarial drug relied on the engineering of a | | | | venture with the second largest Brazilian sugar |
| metabolic pathway to produce a key intermediate | | | | producer, Crystalsev, to get access to inexpensive |
| that is in the class of chemicals called terpenes. | | | | sugar feedstock, and the first demonstration plant is |
| Chemically, terpenes are hydrocarbons, similar to | | | | scheduled to be built right on the sugar plantation in |
| diesel or gasoline, and are therefore very good fuel | | | | Brazil by 2010. It will produce a biodiesel (with the |
| compounds. Thus, the same basic science that led to | | | | interesting name of "No CompromiseTM"), currently |
| artemisinin can be applied, with appropriate tweaking, | | | | being piloted at Amyris' Emerville facility. Amyris |
| to produce fuels based on terpenes. And according | | | | promises that a bio-gasoline and a bio-aviation fuel |
| to the company, a desired fuel compound can be | | | | are not far behind. If any company can make |
| selected based on its properties (flash point, cloud | | | | terpene-based fuels successfully, Amyris appears to |
| point, boiling point, density, fuel value, etc), and then | | | | be that company. |
| the pathway to produce it can be designed. Voila! | | | | |