Greentech Lead U.S: Sapphire Energy, a producer of
crude oil from algae, has formed partnership with Institute for Systems Biology
(ISB) to further the scientific research and development of algae biofuel.
The partnership will focus on applying systems biology
solutions to algae with the goal of significantly increasing oil yield and
improving resistance to crop predators and environmental factors in order to
further the advancement of commercialized algae biofuel production.
The companies will leverage their complementary expertise
to understand, reverse engineer and rationally alter the gene networks for fuel
production in algae.
Sapphire Energy produces algae crude oil, known as Green
Crude, which is renewable, low carbon and can be refined using typical refinery
configurations into Naphtha, diesel and kerosene (jet fuel).
The company recently began operating the first phase of
its 300-acre commercial demonstration Green Crude Farm, also known as an Integrated
Algal Bio-Refinery, in Columbus, New Mexico, in partnership with the US
Department of Energy. The Green Crude Farm is expected to produce
approximately 100 barrels of Green Crude per day, and be completed the end of
2014.
In addition, Sapphire Energy operates a 22-acre research
and development facility in Las Cruces, New Mexico, where it can swiftly
develop new technology and apply it from bench to demonstration scale. In
previous pilot activities, the company successfully provided Green Crude oil that
was used to produce jet fuel for the first flights using algae-derived jet
fuel, including a Continental Airlines 737-800 and a Japan Airlines 747-300.
“Sapphire Energy has developed the premier
biotechnology platform for producing and harvesting algae which we see as
having incredible biological potential,” said Alex Aravanis, chief
science officer (CSO) at Sapphire Energy.
“By working with ISB to apply their systems
biology approach, we’re able to more rapidly identify genes and regulatory
pathways that can increase yield and move us toward our goal of making Green
Crude a market viable, crude oil alternative,” Aravanis added.
Leroy Hood, president of Institute for Systems Biology,
said, “By linking Sapphire’s expertise in algae with ISB’s cross disciplinary
approach to biology, we hope to reverse engineer the gene networks in algae and
create strategies that will significantly improve the yield of green oil and
crop protection and reduce significantly the time to market.”
ISB combines the massive amounts of different kinds of
data that can be generated with today’s high throughput biology to build
detailed genetic models of complex processes, such as crude oil production by
algae. These models can then be validated and used to make predictions about
how to change the algae or their environment to improve yield and overall crop
performance.