{"id":829,"date":"2004-02-10T18:35:48","date_gmt":"2004-02-10T18:35:48","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/agnieszkabiskup.com\/?p=829"},"modified":"2011-05-01T18:33:13","modified_gmt":"2011-05-01T23:33:13","slug":"genetic-engineering-microbes-make-missile-fuel-and-medication","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/agnieszkabiskup.com\/?p=829","title":{"rendered":"genetic engineering: microbes make missile fuel and medication"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><span style=\"color: #000000;\">To help make safer and cheaper rocket fuel, the US  military has enlisted some pretty small soldiers &#8212; bacteria. Funded by  the Office of Naval Research, microbiologist John Frost of Michigan  State University and his team reported in a recent  issue of the <em>Journal  of the American Chemical Society<\/em> that they have modified the genes of  <em>E. coli<\/em> and <em>Pseudomonas fragi<\/em> to allow them to manufacture the chemical  butanetriol. Butanetriol is used to produce the rocket propellant BTTN,  or butanetriol trinitrate, which is used in the Hellfire missile, among  others. Navy scientists have been using less-expensive nitroglycerin,  which is notoriously unstable, but the researchers hope that the new  &#8220;bioproduction&#8221; method could keep costs down so that the safer  butanetriol could begin to replace it in many applications. And  butanetriol has more than just military uses: It is also a precursor to  two cholesterol-lowering drugs. Stated Frost in a press release, &#8220;This  is a classic example of dual use for molecules between pharmaceutical  and defense applications.&#8221;<\/span><\/p>\n<h6><em>This news brief appeared in the Discoveries column of the <\/em>Boston Globe&#8217;s<em> Health\/Science section on 2\/10\/2004.<\/em><\/h6>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>To help make safer and cheaper rocket fuel, the US military has enlisted some pretty small soldiers &#8212; bacteria. Funded by the Office of Naval Research, microbiologist John Frost of Michigan State University and his team reported in a recent &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/agnieszkabiskup.com\/?p=829\">Continue reading <span class=\"meta-nav\">&rarr;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[13,4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-829","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-boston-globe-3","category-news-briefs"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/agnieszkabiskup.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/829","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/agnieszkabiskup.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/agnieszkabiskup.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/agnieszkabiskup.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/agnieszkabiskup.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=829"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/agnieszkabiskup.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/829\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1083,"href":"https:\/\/agnieszkabiskup.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/829\/revisions\/1083"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/agnieszkabiskup.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=829"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/agnieszkabiskup.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=829"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/agnieszkabiskup.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=829"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}