Cyber-spinach turns sunlight into sugar

Cyber-spinach turns sunlight into sugar



Membranes from spinach chloroplasts — the light-collecting organelles in plant cells — were put to work in a microfluidic chip. (Getty)

A cyber-spinach boost for photosynthesis

A biological membrane from spinach leaves can work in tandem with a highly efficient engineered chemical pathway to turn CO₂ into sugars. The artificial chloroplast could someday help produce therapeutic drugs or suck up carbon from the atmosphere. “That’s what excites us: we can realize solutions nature has never touched on,” says synthetic biologist Tobias Erb.

Nature | 4 min readSource: Science paper