Unwrapping methanotrophy: the benefits and pitfalls of biological methane utilization.

Climate change consequences pose significant risks to human health, including reductions of freshwater supplies and food. Global warming is driven by the emission of greenhouse gases, including CO₂ and methane. Human-related activities, such as fossil fuel production, agriculture, landfill use, and municipal wastewater generation are major contributors to global methane emission. Widespread and steady growth of activities linked to CH₄emission make methane not only a major contributor to climate change but also the primary target for near-term climate regulation. While the damaging potential of methane is widely recognized, the ideal system that could diminish the impact of fugitive methane has not yet been elucidated.

Biological methane conversion is the main mechanism that controls methane emission in nature. Biology holds a great potential for global warming stabilization and possibly reduction. I will discuss the most recent research efforts in developing bio-based approaches to converting scattered sources of methane into value-added chemicals. The presentation will focus on novel pathways for methane capturing and our approaches for improving the understanding of methane utilization pathways and facilitating metabolic engineering. A new concept of methane utilization via dry fermentation will be presented. Dry fermentation bridges the full potential of biological systems with technology development to address affordable, small-scale methane mitigation.