Agarwood trees are used as incense and perfumes because of their fragrant oxygenated terpenes. Increasing consumer demand is endangering these trees. This work characterizes agarwood chemical diversity, uses synthetic biology to metabolically engineer green algae to produce terpenes
and presents a green bioprocess to generate diverse oxy- functionalized sesquiterpene mixtures like those from agarwood, but using CO2 as an input. The process could be a sustainable source of fragrances and relieve some pressure on the endangered plants.

Illustrator credit: Science Brush. Hassan A. Tahini hassan@ sciencebrush.design