Partly because of MITEI, Drennan’s work is morphing from extremely basic to more applied research. Could we grow organisms that do more of their natural catalytic activity? This interest made her a natural fit for the MIT Energy Initiative (MITEI). Such enzymes can use the nickel or the cobalt of B 12 to form bonds with carbon, which effectively sequesters carbon dioxide out of the environment and converts it into fuel for growth.ĭrennan has long asked herself if such microbes could help mitigate CO 2 emissions from energy production and consumption. But some microorganisms produce unusual enzymes with nickel centers and uncommon enzymes containing vitamin B 12 (which has a cobalt metallocenter). Many organisms produce enzymes with metal atoms stashed away in their centers - metallocenters. She was attracted to this combination of chemistry and biology because of the intriguing chemistry that some microbial enzymes carry out, including those that contribute to the global carbon cycle. “When I began working on environmentally relevant enzymes about 12 years ago, it was a bizarre little thing,” says Drennan, a professor of chemistry at MIT who is, uniquely, both a Howard Hughes Medical Institute Investigator and a Howard Hughes Medical Institute Professor recognized for outstanding undergraduate education. For example, she tells them, it might be possible to use obscure chemical processes of microorganisms to simultaneously scrub carbon dioxide from coal smokestacks and produce fuel from the CO 2 waste product of energy production. Intensely when she couples energy with the environment and pollution.

The students in Catherine Drennan’s chemistry classes are silent with attention when she says the word “energy.” They listen more

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