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Tag Archives: biofuels

Craig Venter, Businessman? Not So Much

Says Andrew Pollock in the New York Times. Regarding his biofuel efforts, the killer quote, I think comes from Jay Keasling: “I don’t know how many decades his funders have given him.” George Church, as he has repeatedly in the past, questions the wisdom and practicality of engineering organisms from scratch rather than simply re-engineering […]

Big Investors Embrace Multiple Pathways to Next-Gen Biofuels

This summer, I blogged about Joule Biotechnologies’ high-profile quest to make “solar ethanol” and wondered how it would affect other startups also using synthetic biology to make biofuel production more efficient. Particularly, I wondered whether VC firm Flagship Ventures would continue to support the fuel-focused work of LS9, which in May entered a major deal […]

Another Player on Synthetic Path to Biofuels

I’m not sure exactly why a simple announcement — with no accompanying “proof” — is getting so much play in the media, but a press release this week from the previously “stealth” Cambridge-based biofuels outfit Joule Biotechnologies Inc. has set off a flurry of of breathless blogging and mainstream news pickup. Founded in 2007 by […]

Synthetic Biology News: Promise and Risk

Several news outlets have reported on a recent big deal between ExxonMobil and Synthetic Genomics Inc., a privately held company headed by Craig Venter, to collaborate on the development of biofuels from algae. According to the Business Wire report, if research and development milestones are successfully met, ExxonMobil expects to spend more than $600 million […]