Abstract
Researches of photobiological hydrogen production had been sluggish due partly to stabilization of crude oil price. They are arousing social interest again due to our increasing concern about global climate change caused by rise in atmospheric green house gas concentrations. In order to reduce green house gas emission, exploitation of renewable energy sources is essential and solar energy is a strong candidate for it. Although economical photobiological hydrogen production is a hard task to achieve, we believe that it may be attainable if we strive for it based on rigorous R&D plan. It becomes now possible to improve hydrogen productivity by molecular biological techniques based on genomic and scientific informations on photosynthesis, molecular biology, and biochemistry of related fields. This symposium presents basics of photobiological hydrogen production, some characteristics of candidate organisms, and examples of genetic engineering for improved hydrogen production, and discusses new research development in the post-genome era.
