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Researchers extracted phytochromes, photoreceptive proteins, from cyanobacteria (shown here) to enable E. coli to be photosynthetic.
Credit: Linda Nye
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Christopher Voigt and his research partners at the University of California, San Francisco, and the University of Texas at Austin hacked the genes of E. coli bacteria, making each altered cell photosensitive. (Voigt is a member of the current TR35, our annual list of 35 exceptional innovators under the age of 35. He and the others were featured in the September/October 2006 issue.) Their first application of the technology, shown in this slide show, was a lawn of bacteria that acts like a photographic plate: when exposed to red light, the lawn reproduces an image inscribed into a stencil held between it and the light source. But this isn't the goal of Voigt's research--it's just an example of the powerful possibilities raised by the young field of synthetic biology. The ability to precisely engineer and control microörganisms could lead to new bacterial factories that produce complex drugs or materials.
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Comments
peterherb on 03/14/2007 at 10:43 PM
1
Plant Extracts are actually the Ingredients extracted from Herbal Plants. They are really Green Products!
Here is a big showroom of all kind of Plant Extracts: url=http://www.herbalextract.
What do you think about it?
VCRAGAIN on 04/09/2007 at 1:10 PM
32
Short of robots that turn around and start trying to control us, I think organisms that are
modified and end up with characteristics that kill us all off is the next most ghastly idea - oh well I guess they will get controlled by the robots and live happily ever after - so why am i worrying (:<)
please tell me I have been watching too many horror movies !!!
brunascle on 04/09/2007 at 1:37 PM
Web Developer
69
e. coli has been used in microbiology for a long time. from the all-knowing wikipedia:
"Its structure is clear, and it makes for an excellent target for novice, intermediate, and advanced students of the life sciences.... The strains used in the laboratory have adapted themselves effectively to that environment, and are no longer as well adapted to life in the mammalian intestines as the wild type;"
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/E_coli#Role_in_microbiology
gabrielg01 on 04/11/2007 at 4:47 PM
270
There are many strains of E.coli, and most of them are benign. In fact, there are several strains living in humans, and you can think of these benign strains as your microbial bodyguards. They compete with other potentially pathogenic strains, and keep their numbers low. If we didn't have benign bacteria living in us, we'd be overrun by the nasty ones.