By Lily Bourne
Researchers have long attempted to utilize living organisms in hopes of sequestering carbon dioxide, a harmful greenhouse gas, from the atmosphere. Front-runners in this scientific race, cyanobacteria are aquatic organisms that gain energy via oxygenic photosynthesis, meaning they suck up carbon dioxide to produce food.
However, unlike previous candidates, a new discovery seems to be outperforming all expectations. Braden Tierney and a group of researchers discovered UTEX 3222, otherwise known as Chonkus, in the shallow, volcanically active coastal waters of Vulcano, an island near Sicily. These waters, filled with microbial life from the nutrient-rich environment, host a mutant strain of Synechococcus elongatus, now known as Chonkus. When tested in the lab, Chonkus’s cells were larger than previous cyanobacteria and grew faster. In addition, the peanut-butter-like texture of the Chonkus culture makes it ideal for carbon dioxide sequestering, since biotechnologists usually need to separate cyanobacteria from the water they’re mixed in after the carbon dioxide has been absorbed.
In order to harness Chonkus’s potential, scientists like David Kim, the CEO of a cyanobacteria carbon capture start-up, will continue to study its DNA and hopefully learn how to adjust the carbon-sequestering powers of the species. Tierney hopes to continue his search for new microbes with potentially world-changing biology, and Kim adds that “out of all the microbes out there, less than 0.1 percent have been studied.” While scientists still have a lot of research to go before Chonkus provides an effective solution to the growing climate problem, this discovery provides hope in the field for evolving biotechnology and more efficient strategies to fight climate change.