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Team Alberta's aim is to aide in the solution of a global problem, the fuel crisis, by thinking locally. In Alberta, our main industrial practices lay within the oil and gas sector; however, we also have a thriving agricultural and forestry-based industry. The industrial processes associated with these industries produce biomass by-products of little economic value. The aim of our project is to convert these by-products into a useful and economically viable fuel, biodiesel.

This is not a new idea. Previous research has been largely focused on engineering organisms to metabolize cellulose, a highly inefficient approach with very little yield. Here is where our approach differs. Why engineer a new organism to perform a function nature has perfected in another species? Why not just make this organism even better?

We have selected the filamentous, ascomycete fungus Neurospora crassa, which is a natural cellulose metabolizer, with the aim of creating an organism to efficiently make biodiesel. Our fuel will be made by up-regulating fatty acid synthesis and inhibiting beta-oxidation, effectively causing the over-production of fatty acids within N. crassa. From here we will efficiently esterify the fatty acids into fatty acid methyl esters (FAMEs), producing a viable fuel.