CAMBRIDGE, Mass. - A University of Alberta team trying to turn E. coli into fuel has earned a first place finish in the energy category at an international genetic engineering competition at MIT.
Andrew Hessel, a consultant with the Alberta Ingenuity Fund who has helped teams from three Alberta universities compete, says while none of the teams from the University of Calgary, the University of Lethbridge or the U of A made it to the final competition, he calls it a fantastic educational experience.
Justin Pahara, a member of the 10-person University of Alberta team, says a team from Peking University took the grand prize for setting out ways to use electronic circuitry in living organisms to program bacteria.
But he's still hoping to make more headway in the U of A project to try and turn E. coli bacteria into biofuel.
He says using E. coli is kinder to the environment because food crops don't have to be used to make biofuel, and it would cut down on greenhouse gas emissions.
Teams from 59 universities from around the world took part in the competition, including the University of Waterloo, the University of Toronto and McGill.
