Paul Hudson says: “The Calvin cycle is one of the most important metabolic pathways on Earth. While we know that it operates in plants all around us, the Calvin cycle is also present in diverse bacteria. These bacteria also fix CO2, some using light power and other using energy-rich gases. The bacterial Calvin cycle is of high industrial interest, since these CO2-fixing bacteria could be engineered to produce useful compounds and fuels. However, we know far less about the bacterial Calvin cycle than we do about the plant Calvin cycle. This research programme is a 5-year effort to explore the bacterial Calvin cycle, to gain new insight into how to improve the rates of CO2 fixation and to test these strategies. At the core of the effort is a mathematical model of the Calvin cycle, which we can use to simulate the cycle behaviour under different environment conditions. A key component of the programme is acquiring data on mutants of the Calvin cycle, which we can use to train the model.”