Starting a new metabolic path: Researchers develop technique to help metabolic engineering
Thursday, April 21, 2011 - 06:30
in Biology & Nature
(PhysOrg.com) -- Efforts to engineer new metabolic pathways into microbes for the inexpensive production of valuable chemical products, such as biofuels or therapeutic drugs, should get a significant boost in a new development from the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE)s Joint BioEnergy Institute (JBEI). Researchers there have successfully demonstrated a technique they call "targeted proteomics" that speeds up and improves the ability to identify and quantify specific proteins within a cell or microorganism.