People aren’t the only organisms that can’t get going without a daily cuppa. Scientists have engineered a strain of E. coli to thrive on caffeine. To engineer this characteristic in the bacteria, the scientists cloned in genetic material from Psuedomonas putida bacteria. This Psuedomonas species was already known to be able to metabolize caffeine. They also needed to clone in another gene from Janthinobacterium in order for the E. coli to completely metabolize the caffeine. After cloning the genetic material into E. coli, they saw that the bacteria’s growth rate was severely limited by the amount of caffeine in their environment and they could tell how much caffeine was present in a drink by how much of the bacteria grew. The scientists are hoping that the bacteria can be used in decaffeinating waterways near major cities, as the water around population centers usually contains lots of caffeine pollution. If you can get access, check out the paper at ACS Synthetic Biology.