The research published this week from a team of Israeli scientists details the effort to engineer the bacteria, which typically uses sugars or other food sources, to instead grow and feed itself on atmospheric carbon dioxide.

The choice of bacteria came down to two factors – E. Coli is particularly easy to engineer and modify, and its rapid growth and reproduction means that the result of these changes can be seen relatively quickly. Their speedy multiplications also means that colonies of the bacteria can be established relatively quickly if this method is used in the future.

As global warming due to greenhouse gasses becomes such as CO2 becomes more a concern, researchers are turning their attention to novel methods. Initially, the focus was was on organisms with pre-existing carbon conversion mechanisms, such as photosynthetic plants and phytoplankton, however, it proved difficult to modify multicellular organisms to improve their output in this manner.

The E. Coli bacteria, perhaps best known for causing certain types of food poisoning, is no stranger to being used for genetic experiments. Ground breaking research into DNA recombination allowed it to be used for the production of human insulin, and it has since been used in further development to produce a wide range of substances and agents, such as vaccines, biofuels an enzymes.

While the team are hopeful about the way their research will be used, they are careful to point out that this is merely a stepping stone for future developments.