The Production of Microbial Biorenewable Chemicals Since E. coli is one of the most commonly used organisms for biotechnological applications, I will study its behavior under different experimental conditions in order to identify the most appropriate conditions for the efficient production of methyl-ketones and short-chain fatty acids. Since I want them to produce methyl-ketones and short chain fatty acids in the future I first have to figure out their resistance to different concentrations of fatty acids since too much fatty acids are toxic to the E. coli and too little will not be very productive. Basically I want to find the concentration and a specific fatty acid in which cells grow, but their growth shows some inhibition in order to later use them for later studies Also by doing the heat shock experiment I will be able to later perform direct gene analysis of over and under expressed genes using the scan array.What was basically done for the toxicity experiment was add a certain concentration of 2 different fatty acids into a growing population of E.coli varying from a concentration of 0,10,20,30,40 mM. Then their growth and resistance to the toxicity of the fatty acids is measured. For the heat shock you basically grow E.Coli at different temperatures and use the scan array to identify which genes were mostly affected and which are over and under expressed. There are many variables for this experiment. First of all for the Toxicity studies the variables are the two different acids Caproic acid (Hexanoic Acid), Caprylic Acid (Octanoic Acid) and their four different concentrations for each which hare 0mM, 10mM, 20mM, 30mM, and 40mM. Lastly for the heat shock the only variables are the temperature of 50 ° Celsius. In conclusion I found that when E.coli is grown with Caprylic acid and in the concentration of 10mM it grows at a slightly decreased rate compared to a concentration 0mM, but from this we acquire that this concentration of Caprylic acid is not very toxic to E. coli. Also as predicted in my hypothesis all samples with Caprylic acid were most resistant. For the heat shock experiment, I was successfully able to view the genes that were over- and under- expressed and view which genes are most dominant when compared with the 37ºCelsius and 50ºCelsius sample. This helps to be one step closer in being able to use the E.coli in the making of methyl-ketones and short chain fatty acids and making a future renewable resource.