Three teams of U.S./U.K. researchers have made progress in a long-standing quest to develop ways to boost the efficiency of photosynthesis. Because of each team's progress, they have each received additional funding from the U.S.' NSF and the U.K.'s BBSRC to continue their research.

Credit: Thinkstock

Solar energy is captured and converted to chemical fuel by a photosynthetic organism. Plug-and-play is designed to improve the efficiency of this capture and conversion by: 1) separating these two processes into two environments: one that captures solar energy and another that produces fuel; and 2) enabling electrical currents to flow from the former to the latter environment via electrically conductive bacterial nanowires that will be repurposed via bioengineering to form an electrical bridge between the two environments.

Credit: Zina Deretsky, NSF

The light-driven bicarbonate pump that is being designed by the MAGIC team will transport bicarbonate (HCO3-) to plant cells. This bicarbonate will then be converted by the enzyme carbonic anhydrase (CA) into carbon dioxide (CO2).

Credit: John H. Golbeck, The Pennsylvania State University

The CAPP project aims to transfer key photosynthetic components from algae to plants in order to enhance crop productivity. In this false-color electron microscopy image, the pyrenoid of a green algea is highlighted in blue, and the chloroplast, an organelle that carries out photosynthesis, is highlighted in green.

Credit: Moritz Meyer and Howard Griffiths