I have this personal hypothesis that natural non-GMO algal viruses could perhaps be used as a built-in mechanism against invasive species in open pond systems, considering that the viruses are fairly host species-specific, and the genus and strains of the high lipid yielding species are generally different from the invasive species. Furthermore, the hiberation period of most algal viruses are 7-14 hrs, which means cell lysis/rupture and release of viruses could out compete the invasive species. The desired species in the open pond would have to be inert to the virus for this to work. How this system would work is envisioned by myself as such. 1. You first identify the dominant native invasive species (by leaving a pond to grow wild and analysing its contents). 2. You try to identify a virus with a fast lytic cycle which specifically targets the dominant native invasive species and does not act against your desired species. 3. You try to get the virus culture (this is the tricky part, is there an institute or a company that stores these viruses? They should be quite durable, considering they're just particles). 4. You breed the invasive native species in a small isolated PBR, and release the virus culture into the PBR to crash the population and generate lots of your algal virus. 5. you release the viruses in minute concentrations into your open ponds on a continuous basis (say 1 drop a day?). 6. The virus concentration in your pond will only surge and crash the native dominant invasive species if there's an invasion of the native dominant species. And a high concentration of the virus particles does'nt affect the growth of the desired algal species population, since its not the virus's target host. So in essence, they're acting a bit like the immune system, which surges only in an infection. The risks I foresee with this strategy is possible escape of the virus into the natural environment where it might wipe out the local native dominant invasive algae. Anyone else thinks this is a great or stupid idea? Please comment. Wanna use this thread as a sounding board for this idea. And if someone could test out this hypothesis, it would be nice. I've got no capital or anything to try this out. Cheers, Ruixiang (Ray) Huang

cool idea another potential problem is if your virus eventually adapts to find your algea "tasty"

Sounds like a well thought out idea. If the right viruses could be located or identified from the local area. This sounds like it might have a lot of potential. I posted the world culture collection here. http://forums.biodieselnow.com/topic.asp?TOPIC_ID=14619 What an ingenious idea really. Using viruses as an immune system. I really like your idea. I only wish I had the facilities and resources to test it out. There are still issues of weather and temperature fluctuation, but in many warm area's that is a moot point. Lets hope someone give this idea a shot.

I actually wanted to find someone to try this out and patent it if it worked about a while ago (Yes, I'm a corporate whore) when I thought it out, but there were no financieers or institutes interested to hear the ideas out. Either that or they had very oppressive IP ownership & assignment agreements. Ah well, you heard it first here (Assuming someone else didn't come up with this idea earlier, I didn't do a literature or patent search). This is public information now. Too late to get it back. If this is indeed an original idea, just give me some credit by citing this post. My name's Ruixiang(Ray) Huang, I'm currently in Singapore. If you're interested in growing algae around the Far East region, I've got other hypothesis (in fact, perhaps better ones) on both open pond systems and PBRs that should work as well, I just need capital to test them out. Drop me an email. Regarding Algaeman's point raised, yes, this would work very well in tropical/warm regions. But you do realise I'm located in the equatorial region, hehehe. I do think the open pond systems have tremedous potential in the tropical regions - Amazon, Central Africa, South East Asia. Gimme $$$!!!*chuckles* ========================= Ruixiang(Ray) Huang B.Eng(Chemical).Mgt, McMaster University LL.B(Env & IP Law) Candidate, London Jobless Chemical Engineer Will Work for Peanuts!

A suggestion to supplement this idea from a Mr Mark Wong from Michigan State University, He's a microbiologist currently studying towards a PhD, specializing in microbial pathogen detection technology: You could drastically cut back on the input of invasive microbial species into your open pond aquaculture if you microfilter (or even just sand bed filter) your source water before input into your open pond. If there are concerns about releasing viruses into the natural habitat you might want to consider 2 options. Your first option is to explore the promotion of protozoan growth in your ponds. Like the phages these are natural bacterial predators. But being protozoans, they are easily settled out of the system so you don't have to worry about them contaminating your surrounding ecology. Secondly, the more conventional way is to input phosphates to promote algal blooms and suppress bacteria by quickly tying up the nutrients. ========================= Ruixiang(Ray) Huang B.Eng(Chemical).Mgt, McMaster University LL.B(Env & IP Law) Candidate, London Jobless Chemical Engineer Will Work for Peanuts!

Appears that such a strategy has already been proven for the human body and hence should work for algal ponds.

Any collaborators?
 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phage_therapy

 

 

Phage therapy

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Bacteriophages or "phage" are viruses that invade bacterial cells and, in the case of lytic phages, disrupt bacterial metabolism and cause the bacterium to lyse [destruct]. Phage therapy is the therapeutic use of lytic bacteriophages to treat pathogenic bacterial infections. Phage therapy is an alternative to antibiotics, being developed for clinical use by many western research groups in Europe and the US. It has been extensively used and developed in the former Soviet Union.

The treatment uses a phage virus to infect and kill specific bacteria whilst not interacting with the surrounding human tissue or with other harmless bacteria. The virus replicates quickly so a single, small dose is usually sufficient.

Phages are currently being used therapeutically to treat bacterial infections that do not respond to conventional antibiotics.

History of phage therapy

In Russia from the time of Stalin there has been extensive research and development in this field. Following the discovery of bacteriophages by Frederick Twort and Felix d’Hérelle in 1915 and 1917, phage therapy was thought by many to be the key for the eradication of many human diseases. Commercialization of phage therapy was even undertaken by the large pharmaceuical company, Eli Lilly. However, early uses of phage therapy were often unreliable due to a lack of knowledge regarding the biology of phages and the use of incorrect phage cocktails. As a result, the discovery of antibiotics in 1941 resulted in the loss of interest in further use and study of phage therapy.

Isolated from Western advances in antibiotic production in the 1940s, Russian scientists continued to develop already successful phage therapy to treat the wounds of soldiers in field hospitals. The success rate was as good as, if not better than any antibiotic, and Russian researchers continued to develop and to refine their treatments and to publish their research and results.

There is an extensive library and research centre at the Tbilisi Institute in Georgia. Phage therapy is today a widespread form of treatment in countries that were formerly members of the Soviet Union.

Collecting and testing phage

In its simplest form, phage treatment works by collecting samples likely to contain viruses, for example effluent outlets and faeces and other sources. The samples are taken and applied to growth media containing the bacteria that are to be destroyed. The growth media are then tested to see which ones show growth suppression and/or destruction of the target bacteria. The phage showing suitable effects on the target bacteria are then amplified and distributed.

Benefits

The most apparent benefit of phage therapy is that although bacteria are able to develop resistance to phages the resistance is much easier to overcome. The reason behind this is that phages replicate and undergo natural selection and have probably been infecting bacteria since the beginning of life on this planet. Although bacteria evolve at a fast rate, so too will phages. Bacteria are most likely to modify the molecule that the phage targets, which is usually a bacterial receptor. In response to this modification phages will evolve in such a way that counteracts this change, thus allowing them to continue targeting bacteria and causing cell lysis. As a consequence phage therapy is likely to be devoid of the problems similar to antibiotic resistance.

Bacteriophages are very specific, targeting only a particular strain of bacteria. Traditional antibiotics have a wide-ranging effect, killing both harmful bacteria and useful bacteria such as those facilitating food digestion. The specificity of bacteriophages reduces the chance that useful bacteria are killed when fighting an infection.

The machinery and regulation pathways in eukaryotes are different from bacteria, therefore preventing eukaryotes acting as hosts to these phages.

Increasing evidence shows the ability of phages to travel to a required site — including the brain, where the blood brain barrier can be crossed — and multiply in the presence of an appropriate bacterial host, to combat problems such as meningitis.

Development and production is faster than antibiotics, on condition that the required recognition molecules are known.

Research groups in the West are seeking to develop broad spectrum phage and targeted MRSA treatments in a variety of forms - including impregnated dressings for wounds.

Application

Phages are "host specific" and it is therefore necessary in many cases to match phages to the patient's infection prior to treatment. Some bacteria, for example clostridium and mycobacterium, have no known therapeutic phages available - however isolation of therapeutic phages can typically require a few months to complete if there are sufficient host bacterial strains available for testing.

Phages can work if applied orally, topically on infected wounds or spread onto surfaces, and used during surgical procedures.

In August 2006, the United States Food and Drug Administration approved spraying meat with phages. This has raised concerns since without mandatory labelling consumers won't be aware that meat and poultry products have been treated with the spray. [1]

According to Phage International, phage therapy can also be used for the treatment of a variety of human afflictions including: laryngitis, skin infections, dysentery, conjuctivitis, salmonella, and other bacterial infections.

Road Blocks

The host specificity of phage therapy may make it necessary for clinics to make numerous different cocktails for treatment of the same infection or disease because the bacterial components of such diseases may differ from region to region or even person to person. Such a process would make it difficult for large scale production of phage therapy. Additionally, patent issues may make it difficult for pharmaceutical companies to patent phages for therapy use, thus making them reluctant to devote money for phage therapy research and development.

 

Clinics

• Phage Therapy Center, Tbilisi, Republic of Georgia
• Hirzfeld Institute, Polish Academy of Science

References

• Lindalee Tracey and Emmanuel Laurent, "Killer Cure", Films à Trois, 2005
• Pirisi A. Phage therapy: advantages over antibiotics? Lancet 2000; 356: 1418. PMID 11052592.
• Brussow H. (2005). Phage therapy: the Escherichia coli experience. Microbiology. 151:2133-40
• Intralytix
• Phage International Inc.
• Häusler, T. (2006) "Viruses vs. Superbugs", Macmillan.

See also

14 March 2006--FDA trials?

Newspaper article on Phage

 

 

 

 

Ray, Great Idea. I don't like the idea of an open pond though!

I have a couple of suggestions for your writing that might make things a little easier for your readers to keep up with your thoughts. Put some paragraphs into your text. Us older folks are used to that kind of organized writing. Your idea is so much easier to read and absorb if the text is not all crammed together.

One more thing is this: We are discussing Diesel for Trucks and Tractors. The owners of these vehicles are not all College grad's and do not normally use the vocabulary you are using. Talk down to our level.

When you say "Pond" are you literalally meaning an impoundment of water in an open field?
The Wind and Rain will bring all kinds of foreign 'stuff' into an open pond. Not to mention what Birds do as they fly over the pond.

Bird Poop is a Rich source of Protein, but does not seem to be useful in the production of vegetable oil. It might fight whatever Algae you have in the pond as well. How would you address all those issues?

How about something like this:
An open field with lot's of sunny exposure. Practically the whole American West!
In that Open field are lines of Clear Plastic or Glass Tubes. The bottom's of the tubes are dark in color to keep the heat inside the Tubes. The upper parts of the Tubes are open to the Sun as it passes over this field of Tubes.

Now insert the Algae product into the Tubes and watch the product grow.
At harvest time the Tubes can be opened at the lower end and the Algae can flow out on it's way to the processor.
Or, a large bore brush can force the Product out of the Tubes into the Processor.

I am interested in a way that all of us, who own some open ground with good exposure to the sun for long hours, can become Algae producers. It must be profitable though!

Where do we get this "Algae" to stat with?
How much of an Exposure would we need to make a given amount of Oil?
For instance, to make 100 Gallons of Diesel, how much in the way of "Sun Area" would we need?
How long would this growing process take to make 100 gallons of Diesel?

How about the Processing part of the operation?
What is involved in processing the product that came out of the "Algae" field?

You could get rich licensing this kind of an operation if you get it down to the ease of operation we can work with.
Imagine the whole sunny south west Texas, New Mexico, Wyoming, Arizona and other places, converted to great fields of Algae diesel production?

Hoppy 

 

HI,

open ponds wont allow maximum yeilds... too many variable factors, bird poop offers the risk of contamination by predatory organisms or invasive algaes, especially if the birds are aquatic species since they eat algaes that may compete with the more delicate cultures that can produce worthwhile yeilds of transesterifiable oils.glass tubes would be frightfully expensive and subject to damage ,also ,cleanout would be very difficult as you are looking at acres upon acres of algae production systems and cost will be  a critical factor that will affect the proftiability and therefore the  ability for this technology to become competitive and practical to provide  what we consider absolutly essential to the long term survival of alternative fuels: the biofuels must be dramatically cheaper than petroleum derived fuels or biofuels  produced with  the current state of the art. so far ,biodiesel from conventional feedstocks has not passed the low cost requirement that we insist is critical to the success and surviveabilityin the marketplace. we are in the final stages of getting cost estimates  from le tourneau, case and caterpillar on our "pond planter"(R) a machine we have developed that will allow the construction of our closed loop ecosystems " by the mile" in a linear pattern at an extremely low cost.... we will attempt to have the working prototype available by mid  january or febuary if we receive  proper funding to get the system  built and we will then intend to licence the technology and the machines for multi acre projects. we have been approached by a considerable number of entities that are interested in constructing projects up to forty acres of more. , we have had great results with using some of the equipments that are integrated into the "pond planter" in the past ,so this in not a matter of conjecture or drawing board doodling. in addition, some of our former students  dropped  by  to acquire more algae samples a couple of days ago and they were very excited about an apparent breakthrough technology that they were on thier way to check out that could increase the rate of growth of algae by as much as 600  percent we are anxiously waiting to hear from them to see if they were able to confirm if this was indeed not a bunch of BS. if true, this would make biofuels from algae all the more feasable.. our recent tests more than convince me that biodiesel from algae is indeed feasable, in addition we have determined that biofuel from waste streams is also practical and in fact offer the potential to allow that production of both biodiesel and ethanol are possible from these wastes. we are currently negotiating with five major food producers to receive thier wastes but thats off topic on this thread so I wont elaborate here.

I am convinced that Ecogenics technologies will make it possible to offer biofuels at prices as low as $1.25 per gallon to the public by next year making petro  derived fuels a thing of the past....that is... if all goes well with funding

www.ecogenicsresearchcenter.org

hii huangrx

i like yr idea very much.i m ready to do work with u on this

we can even carry out research and experiments on it

I had actually started to do some research in this area. I didn't want to post yet because I was still far from being knowledgeable in virology.  You've done a lot more work on this topic than I have, and I am very happy to read your post on it. There is one thing I worry about that you haven't talked about: and that is the need to have a continuous system for the virus/bacteria/phage to consume, so that you will have an adequate population of the organism when you to add it to your pond to chase out the weed algae. Having multiple PBRs and culture quickly gets complicated and expensive. The competing costs of open ponds vs. an entirely PBR system may become more favorable to the PBR solution at this point. It is difficult to know without more exact figures. We need some good research done. This is a recurring theme on this and other forums relating to algaculture for fuel purposes.  I certainly do not have  the ability to fund the research I think needs to be done in the area I have been putting the most thought into. Perhaps frustrated researchers such as you and I and a few others on here could form  a non-profit fuel algaculture research institute and apply to various foundations for research grants. Perhaps as a lawyer, Ray, you understand some of the issues involving intellectual property which would be involved in this. I believe that the best thing to do as far as IP is to patent any inventions, and give free license to any organization that is judged to be beneficial to mankind. Organizations with particularly predatory patent policies would be prevented from using this institutes inventions until they modify their policies to be more open.

Regardless of anyone's views on the IP issue, I would be most interested in hearing from those who might be interested in starting such a research institute. 

Bob,

 

For oil from algae research  in general, I feel the best way to go is open source - like Linux.  Let's make our research results available to each other and try to help each other.

 Trying to hide our results behind lawyers will just slow down our progress.

liberty1:

Bob,

 

For oil from algae research  in general, I feel the best way to go is open source - like Linux.  Let's make our research results available to each other and try to help each other.

 Trying to hide our results behind lawyers will just slow down our progress.

I agree, to an extent. I just wouldn't want someone to take our work and use it to screw us over. 

Bob,

 

Not a problem.  Just publish the information here.  That puts it in the public domain and makes it impossible for someone to get a patent on it.

 

That's the theory.  In the real world:

 

Problem 1:

The patent office is not very good about checking patents out before they issue them.  They issue a lot that they should not have.  So some lawyer could take our information and use it to get a patent and use that patent to harrass us.  It should be a piece of cake to defend ourselves, but that would involve hiring another lawyer.   Bottom line: slightly paranoid, unlikely to happen, etc.

 

Problem 2:

After we have developed almost all the information necessary to implement oil form algae, someone could notice that, develop the one missing piece of info, patent that and have a monoply on the field, using the information we developed.  Could happen, but unlikely - in the history of human innovation, when a field gets close to working, several people come up with the breakthrough and often there are several versions.

 

(Interesting enough, a similar thing happened with Linux.  Richard Stallman was developing the GNU system.  He had worked out almost everything needed, except the kernel.  Linus developed a kernel and looked around for the rest of a system - he discovered GNU.  Most of the world calls the result Linux.  Richard thinks we should call it Linux-GNU.  The good news - nobody really got screwed - both parts are available free and most distributions include both.)

I don't feel we need to worry - we will be able to innovate faster than the lawyers.

 

Well, so if you know of RMS then you must also know of the GPLv3. That's sort of what I'd like. The issues it addresses are some of my concerns.

As far as the idea of the research foundation I proposed - how many people here are willing to put resources towards it? Resources can range from the minimal as signing on supporting the idea of its foundation, all the way through to introducing a formal entity to potential funding sources. I am going to approach a friend of mine who works on alternative energy programs at MIT to see what ways such a foundation could partner with it.

Bob,

 

I have heard of GPLv3, but have not reviewed it.  Do you have any comments on it, or is there a review you like?