Algae Genome Editing: Creating Factories for Food, Chemical building Blocks and Energy Carriers

Dear Colleagues,

Micro and macro algae have a long history as promising systems for energy production and environmental applications such as biofuel production, wastewater treatment and resource recovery, etc. Commercially, algae play a significant role in the food industry (global seaweed market in 2013: US $6.7 billion) and new health food applications are expected to provide additional future growth for products that haven been used for human consumption as early as 12.000 A.D. Their capacity to grow autotrophically and to accumulate lipids has frequently brought algae to the forefront of biofuel production. However, technical challenges in large scale autotrophic cultivations and the presence of many high value compounds in algae has led to interest in diversified applications. Heterotrophic cultivation of algae and subsequent valorization by generating a portfolio of multiple high-value products in an integrated biorefinery approach is highly promising. Algae have vast metabolic capabilities and have largely been ignored as production host from a biotechnological point of view. The rise of advanced gene editing tools now enables genetic and metabolic engineering of algae. The possibilities are very promising while the available tools are still limited. This special issue will focus on gene editing in algae and the resulting applications.

Prof. Lars Rehmann
Prof. Valerie Ward
Guest Editors

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• Genetic engineering
• micro algae
• biofuels
• biorefinery
• lipid production
• heterotopic algae