Vats of blue-green algae could one day replace oil wells in producing raw materials for the chemical industry, a UC Davis chemist predicts.

Shota Atsumi, a UC Davis assistant professor of chemistry, is using synthetic biology to create cyanobacteria (blue-green algae), which convert carbon dioxide in the air into complex hydrocarbons. Cyanobacteria are single-celled organisms that, like green plants, can use sunlight to turn carbon dioxide and water into sugars and other carbohydrates.

The U.S. Department of Energy has set a goal of obtaining a quarter of industrial chemicals from biological processes by 2025. Today, 99 percent of the raw materials used to make paint, plastics, fertilizers, pharmaceuticals and other chemical products come from petroleum or natural gas, according to Atsumi.

While some chemicals, such as biofuels, can be obtained from converted plant material, plants are relatively slow to grow, and using farms to grow fuel takes arable land out of food production. Instead, Atsumi is engineering cyanobacteria to make chemicals they do not make in nature. By carefully analyzing genes in these and other organisms, his team will assemble artificial synthetic pathways and put them into living cells.