In September the University of Michigan was awarded a $3 million grant to work on the anaerobic bioconversion of methane to methanol. Rather than achieving methane activation through the addition of energy and oxygen, the U of M goal is to engineer a methane-activation pathway inside a methane generating microorganism. If successful, the biocatalyst will convert natural gas to a liquid fuel more efficiently and more cost effectively than current methods. The grant was awarded under the Federal Advanced Research Projects Agency – Energy (ARPA-E) air emissions reduction program.