Sapphire Energy Moving Fast on Genetically Engineered Algae

After reading Andy Pollack’s reportage on biotechnology for years in the New York Times, I finally got a chance to meet him a couple of weeks ago in San Diego, at a briefing to update reporters and VIPs on the $300-million partnership that Synthetic Genomics and ExxonMobil formed to develop algae biofuels.

Today Pollack published an overview on algal biofuels that features two San Diego algae biofuels startups—Synthetic Genomics and Sapphire Energy—and mentions the concerns raised in some quarters about growing genetically engineered algae in open ponds. The concerns about genetically engineered algae are similar in nature to the concerns raised about growing any genetically modified organism (GMO) in an open environment.

While genetically modified crops are grown throughout the United States, many environmental groups—particularly in Europe—remain opposed to agricultural production of genetically engineered plants. In the case of genetically engineered algae, Synthetic Genomics’ founding CEO J. Craig Venter says in the Times article that “suicide genes” could be inserted that would kill the algae if they escaped from the lab or fuel production facility.

Algae Flask Sapphire EnergyBut the Times article left me with a sinking feeling that I had gotten some important information wrong in a story I posted last October, “Two Things I Learned During My Tour of Sapphire Energy.”

One of the things I learned—or thought I learned—last year was that San Diego-based Sapphire Energy wasn’t genetically engineering its algae. The algal biofuels startup, which has funding from Bill Gates, Arch Venture Partners, and others, was using high-throughput screening to test thousands of different species of algae daily—and thereby identify which species are ideally suited for producing natural oils that can be used to make gasoline and other fuels.

In an e-mail to Sapphire spokesman Tim Zenk, I said I wanted to set the record straight, and I felt like my headline should have said, “Two Things I Learned During My Tour of Sapphire—One of Which is Wrong…”

But in his reply, Zenk assures me that

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Author: Bruce V. Bigelow

In Memoriam: Our dear friend Bruce V. Bigelow passed away on June 29, 2018. He was the editor of Xconomy San Diego from 2008 to 2018. Read more about his life and work here. Bruce Bigelow joined Xconomy from the business desk of the San Diego Union-Tribune. He was a member of the team of reporters who were awarded the 2006 Pulitzer Prize in National Reporting for uncovering bribes paid to San Diego Republican Rep. Randy “Duke” Cunningham in exchange for special legislation earmarks. He also shared a 2006 award for enterprise reporting from the Society of Business Editors and Writers for “In Harm’s Way,” an article about the extraordinary casualty rate among employees working in Iraq for San Diego’s Titan Corp. He has written extensively about the 2002 corporate accounting scandal at software goliath Peregrine Systems. He also was a Gerald Loeb Award finalist and National Headline Award winner for “The Toymaker,” a 14-part chronicle of a San Diego start-up company. He takes special satisfaction, though, that the series was included in the library for nonfiction narrative journalism at the Nieman Foundation for Journalism at Harvard University. Bigelow graduated from U.C. Berkeley in 1977 with a degree in English Literature and from the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism in 1979. Before joining the Union-Tribune in 1990, he worked for the Associated Press in Los Angeles and The Kansas City Times.