Chromatin

Chromatin will engineer sweet sorghum—a plant that naturally produces large quantities of sugar and requires little water—to accumulate the fuel precursor farnesene, a molecule that can be blended into diesel fuel. Chromatin's proprietary technology enables the introduction of a completely novel biosynthetic process into the plant to produce farnesene, enabling sorghum to accumulate up to 20% of its weight as fuel. Chromatin will also introduce a trait to improve biomass yields in sorghum. The farnesene will accumulate in the sorghum plants—similar to the way in which it currently stores sugar—and can be extracted and converted into a type of diesel fuel using low-cost, conventional methods. Sorghum can be easily grown and harvested in many climates with low input of water or fertilizer, and is already planted on an agricultural scale. The technology will be demonstrated in a model plant, guayule, before being used in sorghum.

If successful, Chromatin's project will enable large-scale production of renewable biofuels from crops that do not compete with food production.