“Dissolved carbon is relatively dilute compared to all the other molecules in the ocean, and that limits the growth of photosynthetic organisms that live there. We decided to investigate what happens when you alleviate that limiting factor by going to a place with plenty of carbon, where some organisms could have evolved the ability to use it to galvanize their growth,” said co-corresponding author Max Schubert, Ph.D., who was a staff scientist at the Wyss Institute at Harvard University when the work was conducted and is now Lead Project Scientist at Align to Innovate. “This naturally occurring strain of cyanobacteria has several traits that could be useful to humans, including highly dense growth and a natural tendency to sink in water, making Chonkus a particularly interesting organism for future work on decarbonization and biomanufacturing.”