An Everyday DNA blog article
Written by: Sarah Sharman, PhD
Illustrated by: Rita Clare, SciVetica
Take a quick look around you right now. How many plastic items do you see?
Your morning iced coffee cup, the housing on your computer keyboard, your car’s dashboard, or the bottle holding your favorite shampoo. Plastics are completely woven into the fabric of modern life. They’re lightweight, durable, and cheap to make. But they also come with a heavy footprint.
For over a century, we’ve relied on petroleum to create the synthetic polymers that make up plastic and other common materials. However, there are challenges as our supply of petroleum is limited, and when plastics reach the end of their lifespans, they often persist in the environment or landfills for hundreds of years.
What if the answer to our plastic problem isn’t hidden in a high-tech synthetic lab, but growing right in our backyards?
Scientists at HudsonAlpha and their regional partners are looking to a surprising hero to build a cleaner, greener future: perennial grasses.
Perennial Grasses as Building Blocks
When you hear the word “grass,” you might think of a suburban lawn. But perennial grasses, like switchgrass and Miscanthus, are robust, deep-rooted plants that grow back year after year without needing to be replanted.
Unlike traditional food crops like corn or soybeans, these non-food grasses can thrive on marginal land, such as underutilized farmland with soil that is too poor, dry, or degraded to grow food. That means farmers don’t have to choose between growing our dinner and growing sustainable materials.
Using petroleum can create emissions and other environmental issues, whereas perennial grasses pull carbon dioxide in through photosynthesis, trapping it safely in their deep root systems and revitalizing the soil. These grasses are truly regenerative.
Replacing oil-derived chemicals with plant-derived bioproducts gives us a renewable, domestically grown, and sustainable starting material for everyday items.
Creating the Perfect Grass
Harvesting grass to make products sounds simple in theory, but to manufacture grass-based biobased products on an industrial scale, we need a lot of plant material, or what scientists call biomass.
That’s where genetics steps in. Plant geneticists, like those at HudsonAlpha, are using advanced genomics and genetic engineering to study the DNA of these tough grasses. By identifying which genes control growth rate, drought tolerance, and stalk density, scientists can breed grass varieties tailored specifically for bioproducts.
Think of it like tuning an engine: scientists tweak the plant’s natural genetic blueprint so it grows taller, produces more leafy and stemmy biomass per acre, and uses fewer inputs like water and fertilizer. More biomass per plant means more raw material for sustainable products, all from the same plot of land.
Breaking it Down: From Plant Stems to Building Blocks
So, how exactly do you turn a handful of green shoots into a sturdy car bumper or food container? It all comes down to breaking the plant down to its core chemical building blocks:
- Cellulose and hemicellulose: Long chains of sugar molecules that give plants their structure. Once broken down, these sugars can be fermented into sustainable chemicals and bioplastics.
- Lignin: The tough “glue” that keeps plants standing upright. Lignin is rich in complex aromatic compounds that can be transformed into high-performance resins, rigid foams, and carbon fibers.
By isolating these natural polymers, researchers can recreate the exact strength, flexibility, and durability we normally get from petroleum, but grown by regional farmers.
Cars, Containers, and Building Materials
This isn’t just a cool concept sitting on a laboratory workbench; it’s turning into a major regional industry thanks to a new initiative called the BRIDGES NSF Engine (Biobased Rural Innovation for Domestic Growth and Economic Security).
This NSF Regional Innovation Engine is co-led by HudsonAlpha Institute for Biotechnology, Auburn University, the University of Tennessee, AGgrow Tech LLC, and Volkswagen Group of America and involves more than 80 partners. Their goal is to connect cutting-edge plant research directly to domestic manufacturing across three key sectors:
- Automotive components: Partnering directly with automakers to engineer lightweight, durable interior door panels, dashboards, and structural trim from grass fibers.
- Packaging and containers: Manufacturing biodegradable food service containers, shipping materials, and consumer product packaging.
- Building supplies and infrastructure: Developing sustainable composite materials, structural resins, and biobased additives for asphalt and pavement.
Growing New Opportunities in Rural Communities
The impact of this research extends far beyond the lab and factory floor; it reaches right into rural farm towns across 81 counties in Alabama (46 counties) and Tennessee (35 counties).
Historically, the Southeast has exported raw agricultural commodities for processing elsewhere into high-value goods. BRIDGES flips that script by building a complete, domestic biomanufacturing supply chain right here at home, strengthening national economic security and rural prosperity at the same time over the next decade:
- For Farmers: Establishing 50,000 acres of perennial crops on low-performing farmland will generate an estimated $30 million in new direct annual income for local farm families.
- For Local Economies: Processing biomass locally is projected to attract $2 billion in private capital investment and create over 4,000 higher-paying manufacturing and supply chain jobs (representing ~$280 million in annual direct wages).
- For the Workforce: BRIDGES will engage more than 10,000 regional participants in specialized workforce development and technical training programs.
By bridging the gap between plant genetics, sustainable farming, and commercial manufacturing, we aren’t just solving a plastic problem; we’re growing new agricultural markets, a healthier environment, and a stronger local economy right from the ground up.
