Green Gold – translational science on living cell factories and the hope of engineering metabolisms to enable a sustainable future

Residual biomasses from industrial agriculture, fishery and forestry have recently come to be seen as a “green gold”capable of enabling Denmark to turn away from
fossil-fuel dependence and towards leadership in an emerging bioeconomy.
Through metabolic engineering “living cell factories” can create the desired
ecologically closed loop. Yet, industrial-era artifacts and profit-motives designed to
make Denmark an economic leader trap us in a dangerous cycle of ruin and hope
(Tsing 2015). This project examines metabolic science through ethnographic
fieldwork at DTU Biosustain Denmark, a research center where scientists, cells,
public, and private organizations collaborate to create metabolic conversions.
Through bench-level observations, interviews and readings of scientific papers, the
project will describe the many convergences that make up the infrastructure of
Denmark’s metabolic science and seek out openings for ethical conversions
between science, biotech industries, macro policies