South San Francisco-based LS9 (http://www.ls9.com) engineers E. coli and other organisms to convert sugars to fatty acid-derived compounds such as alkanes and esters for fuels, as well as higher value commodity chemicals such as fatty alcohols and olefins, rather than building bugs from scratch. “We have focused the majority of our effort on fatty acid metabolism, since it is one of biology's most energetically efficient pathways and is used for both the production of cellular structural components such as membranes and energy storage compounds such as fat,” said Stephen del Cardayre, vice president, research and development. “It is also amenable to engineering, allowing diversion from the normal pathways to structural lipids to modified compounds that can be used as fuels and chemicals.” The venture-funded company was started three years ago by George Church, professor of genetics at Harvard University; Chris Somerville, director of the Energy Biosciences Institute and professor of plant and microbial biology at the University of California, Berkeley; and Jay Keasling.LS9 currently feeds its microbes sugar from sugarcane, burning the bagasse for energy as an interim step to using cellulosic technology. In what del Cardayre dubs “microrefineries,” LS9 conducts all chemical conversions in a single cell in one step. “We use synthetic biology to identify genes that encode key enzyme catalysts,” said del Cardayre. “Those genes that express these catalysts are compiled inside our cells.” Cells produce a finished fuel product that is centrifuged and needs no additional transformation.LS9 has scaled from a lab output of 2 to 5 liters to a 1000 liter pilot plant. The company plans ramping up production this summer in a commercial 100,000 liter plant. While the companies profiled here currently use sugarcane as a feedstock, it isn't cheap enough long term. “For this entire industry to have the impact that it needs to have, we all have to be working with cellulosic feedstocks,” said del Cardayre. Cellulosic conversion technologies, however, are not yet commercially ready.“Our goal is to produce fuel, diesel initially, at a cost competitive with $45 barrel oil,” said del Cardayre. “This is without a subsidy and is based on the current price of sugar cane.” LS9's projections are based on 100 million gallon per year production plants.While the renewable fuels field is currently flush with hype and investment, the real costs and yields are still unknown until companies embark on large-scale production. Significant process issues like separation and scale-up remain. But the proof is in the pudding or, in this case, in the vat.