Biocatalysis

South San Francisco-based LS9 announced today that it has developed a microbe that can produce advanced biofuels directly from cellulosic biomass, such as woodchips, in a “one-step” fermentation process that eliminates the need for additional chemicals and industrial processes.

Biofuel company LS9 and Procter & Gamble announced a partnership to develop chemicals  to be used in consumer products. As has been typical with LS9 since its inception, details are sparse, but they have boldly stated that the deal is “multi-year” and includes “sustainable chemicals” in the products under consideration. LS9 has reported that it is developing methods to produce hydrocarbon products for fuels by combining the fatty acid synthesis pathway and adding its own proprietary enzymatic steps.

Also focusing on the biological production of hydrocarbons is LS9, Inc. Based on South San Francisco, CA, LS9 has been funded by some members of the usual group of VC suspects: Khosla Ventures, Flagship Ventures, Lightspeed Venture Partners. The company claims to be using synthetic biology to engineer microbes that use the fatty acid pathway to produce large amounts of fatty acids. By adding some proprietary enzymatic steps, LS9 produces hydrocarbons—petroleum-like hydrocarbons, according to the company’s propaganda. As with the Amyris terpene-based products, a hydrocarbon is much more fuel-like than any alcohol, and LS9 makes sure to remind us of that frequently on its web site. “The Best Replacement for Petroleum is Petroleum” is a prominent tag-line. In fact, LS9 appears to be heavy on promotion, but light on details. The number of magazine and newspaper articles cited on the company’s web site is staggering, especially in comparison to lack of any scientific citations. Hmmm.

The idea of co-opting the fatty acid pathway to produce fuel-like molecules is good in concept. Economics are another question that will have to be addressed in more detail soon before the commercial viability of this approach is clear. LS9 is also looking at the production of commodity chemicals, and whenever I see this, I tend to think those could be the first actual products, given the competitiveness of the fuels business.