By Robert Pore
robert.pore@theindependent.com

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention report that at least 67 sicknesses were linked to last year's beef recalls. No deaths were reported. In 2006, there were just eight beef recalls and no reported illnesses, The Associated Press reported.

CDC estimates that e. coli sickens about 73,000 people and kills 61 each year in the United States. Most of the deaths are people with weak immune systems, such as the elderly or very young.

Discovered in the late 1970s, the e. coli bacteria can be found in the stomachs of most cattle. While not harmful for the cattle, it can make humans sick with stomach cramps and bloody diarrhea.

While e. coli is synonymous with food poisoning and product recalls, Texas A&M University reports that one of its professors envisions the bacteria as a future source of energy, helping to power cars, homes and more.

There's a certain irony working here as some are pointing their fingers at the ethanol industry as the cause of the nationwide surge in beef recalls. Studies at two universities suggest that feeding cattle the distillers grains byproduct from ethanol production may have increased the spread of e. coli bacteria.

U.S. Department of Agriculture scientists recently put 300 cattle on a diet of distillers grains and are testing them regularly for the bacteria. Results won't be known until later this year.

Thomas Wood, a professor in the Artie McFerrin Department of Chemical Engineering at Texas A&M, is genetically modifying the bacteria so it produces large amounts of hydrogen. Wood's strain produces 140 times more hydrogen than is created in a naturally occurring process.

Wood said there's still much work to be done before there's commercial applications of his research. But according to Texas A&M, his initial success could prove to be a significant stepping stone on the path to the hydrogen-based economy that many believe is in this country's future.

Renewable, clean and efficient, hydrogen is the key ingredient in fuel-cell technology, which some researchers claim has the potential to power everything from portable electronics to automobiles and even entire power plants.

Most of the hydrogen produced globally is created by a process known as "cracking water," through which hydrogen is separated from oxygen. But the process is costly and requires vast amounts of energy one of the reasons the technology has yet to catch on.

Wood's work with e. coli could change that.

While the public may be used to hearing about the very specific strain that can cause food poisoning in humans, Wood said most strains are common and harmless, even helping their hosts by preventing other harmful bacteria from taking root in the human intestinal tract. E. coli is used in the production of human insulin and in the development of vaccines.

By selectively deleting six specific genes in e. coli's DNA, Wood has transformed the bacterium into a mini hydrogen-producing factory that's powered by sugar. Scientifically speaking, Wood has enhanced the bacteria's naturally occurring glucose-conversion process on a massive scale.

"These bacteria have 5,000 genes that enable them to survive environmental changes," Wood explained. "When we knock things out, the bacteria become less competitive. We haven't given them an ability to do something. They don't gain anything here; they lose. The bacteria that we're making are less competitive and less harmful because of what's been removed."

With sugar as its main power source,Wood said, this strain of e. coli can now take advantage of existing and ever-expanding scientific processes aimed at producing sugar from certain crops, such as corn.

"A lot of people are working on converting something that you grow into some kind of sugar," Wood said. "We want to take that sugar and make it into hydrogen. We're going to get sugar from some crop somewhere. We're going to get some form of sugar-like molecule and use the bacteria to convert that into hydrogen.

"Biological methods such as this e. coli producing hydrogen through a fermentative process are likely to reduce energy costs since these processes don't require extensive heating or electricity," Wood said.

"One of the most difficult things about chemical engineering is how you get the product," Wood said. "In this case, it's very easy because the hydrogen is a gas, and it just bubbles out of the solution. You just catch the gas as it comes out of the glass. That's it. You have pure hydrogen."

There also are other benefits, according to Wood. To lower the cost and risk of transporting hydrogen, he believes the hydrogen can be converted on site.

Wood said his goal is to continue to get more out of less.

"Take your house, for example," Wood said. "The size of the reactor that we'd need today if we implemented this technology would be less than the size of a 250-gallon fuel tank found in the typical East Coast home. I'm not finished with this yet, but at this point if we implemented the technology right now, you or a machine would have to shovel in about the weight of a man every day so that the reactor could provide enough hydrogen to take care of the average American home for a 24-hour period.

"We're trying to make bacteria so it's doesn't require 80 kilograms; it will be closer to 8 kilograms."