Pamela Silver: Using Bacteria to Create Clean Fuels

Could bacteria be our next source of clean fuel energy? "Biology is the best chemist out there," said Harvard scientist Pamela Silver.

The U.S. Department of Energy funds Silver's research exploring the use of deep-ocean extremophiles to create new biofuels. She described the bacteria she works with as being “like little batteries” that “move electrons around.” Silver's goal is to genetically program these ocean bacteria to recover carbon from air or water and process it into fuel.
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Pamela Silver: Using Bacteria to Create Clean Fuels

Pamela Silver is a Professor in the Department of Systems Biology at Harvard Medical School. She is the first Director of the Harvard University PhD Program in Systems Biology. Silver is also a core faculty member at the Wyss Institute for Biologically Inspired Engineering at Harvard University.