date:Dec 27, 2012
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The Rice researchers are changing that with the help of E. coli bacteria engineered to process soy meal that generally gets discarded. Certain microbes naturally produce succinic acid from such feedstock, but manipulating E. coli's metabolic pathways (by eliminating pathways that produce other chemicals like ethanol, for instance) can make it far more efficient.
Expanding on their success in producing succinic acid from glucose, the new microbes are engineered to metabolize a variet