Jewett Lab Innovates Carbon Solutions with New ReForm Project

Researchers at Stanford University’s Jewett Lab have launched an innovative project called ReForm, aiming to transform carbon dioxide emissions into a valuable biological building block known as acetyl-CoA. Led by professor Michael Jewett, who specializes in bioengineering and chemical engineering, the initiative seeks to address climate change by converting waste carbon into useful materials. This project represents a significant step forward in the ongoing battle against environmental degradation.

Transforming Carbon into Value

The ReForm project focuses on enhancing natural processes to generate more valuable biological products instead of the typical biomass that results from carbon fixation in nature. Collaborating with Ashty Karim, a professor of chemical and biological engineering at Northwestern University, Jewett aims to engineer a system that efficiently converts carbon dioxide into acetyl-CoA using a combination of natural and engineered enzymes.

“We sought to use biological enzymes to convert formate derived from CO2 into more valuable materials,” Karim stated in an email. “Since there isn’t an efficient set of enzymes in nature for this task, we decided to engineer one.” This innovative approach involves a process where one natural enzyme and five synthetic enzymes work together to transform formate, a precursor derived from carbon dioxide.

The Jewett Lab builds on an existing process that converts carbon dioxide into formate, enhancing its productivity to create acetyl-CoA more effectively. To achieve this, Jewett and Karim explored various combinations of amino acids to identify the most efficient pathway to their target molecule.

Future Goals and Broader Applications

Jewett highlighted the potential of this research, stating that it represents “a way to rethink the paradigm of synthetic metabolism and push the concept to new limits.” Currently, the team is focused on making this process economically viable. Their immediate goals include improving the space-time yield, which could significantly increase acetyl-CoA production through the use of stabilized enzymes that operate at faster rates.

The Jewett Lab’s expertise extends beyond carbon transformation. Previous research has tackled critical issues such as antibiotic resistance and water contamination. Brenda Wang, a former researcher in the lab, emphasized the lab’s commitment to applying biological solutions to contemporary challenges. The lab utilizes a “cell-free system,” which employs non-living cells to streamline metabolic processes and reduce complexity, allowing for greater experimentation.

This versatile platform is currently being employed across multiple projects, including addressing the looming threat of antibiotic resistance. Jewett has warned that antibiotic resistance could rival cancer as a prevalent health issue in the next 50 years, potentially leading to severe global health implications. In response, the lab is developing conjugate vaccines designed to create a “bacteria fingerprint” that trains the immune system to combat antibiotic-resistant strains.

Karim remarked on the collaborative nature of their research, noting, “This work shows how biological processes can be coupled successfully with electrochemistry or other technologies, merging the best the research in each field has to offer.” As the Jewett Lab continues to innovate, its work holds promise for both environmental sustainability and public health.