TECHNOLOGY FOCUS - BIOTECHNOLOGY - Preferred Strain: (I) optionally contains a functional Entner-Douderoff carbon pathway. (I) has a gene encoding a fructose bisphosphate aldolase enzyme comprising a sequence (S2) of 335 or 358 amino acids, or a gene encoding a keto-deoxy phosphogluconate aldolase comprising:(i) a nucleic acid molecule encoding a sequence (S3) of 212 amino acids, given in the specification;(ii) a nucleic acid molecule that hybridizes with (i) under HC;(iii) a nucleic acid molecule comprising a first nucleotide sequence encoding a polypeptide of at least 212 amino acids that has 59 % identity based on the Smith-Waterman method of alignment when compared to S3; or(iv) a complement of (i) - (iii).(I) further comprises a gene encoding a polypeptide involved in carbon flux comprising 545, 592, 437, 618, 501, 328, 160, 335, 358 or 212 amino acids. (I) optionally comprises a denitrifying enzymatic pathway, involving peptides comprising 390, 151, 168, 147, 166, 379, 920, 214, 501, 751 or 527 amino acids. (I) further comprises genes encoding exopolysaccharide synthesizing enzymes, comprising 293, 473, 366, 779, 472, 272, 284, 398 or 317 amino acids. (I) further comprises genes encoding isoprenoid synthesizing enzymes comprising 620, 394, 157, 231, 544, 297, 285, 511 or 497 amino acids. All the sequences are fully defined in the specification.Preferred Medium: The methanol concentration in the medium for growing (I) is 2.5 % (v/v). SPECIFIC MICROORGANISMS - (I) is Methylomonas 16a American Type Culture Collection (ATCC) designation PTA 2402 (claimed).    EXAMPLE - An environmental sample containing Methylomonas 16A isolate was obtained from a pond sediment which was inoculated directly into defined medium with ammonium as nitrogen source under 25 % methane in air. Growth was followed until the optical density at 660 nm was stable when the culture was transferred to fresh medium so that a 1:100 dilution was achieved. After 3 successive transfers with methane as the sole carbon and energy source, the culture was plated onto growth agar with ammonium as the nitrogen source and incubated under 25 % methane in air. Many methanotrophic bacterial species were isolated. However, M.16a was selected as the organism to study due to the rapid growth of colonies, large colony size, ability to grown on minimal media, and pink pigmentation indicative of an active biosynthetic pathway for carotenoids. M.16a was grown on defined medium with nitrate as the sole nitrogen source and methanol as the sole carbon source. Growth was monitored over a 36 hour period which was typically sufficient for attaining maximum optical density or turbidity of the culture. However no growth was observed at 800 mM. Therefore the strain was allowed to grow on 2.4 % (v/v) of methanol. The presence of nitrogen fixation genes was indicative of M.16a. The strain was shown to grow in the absence of yeast extract or vitamins. Nitrate, ammonium ion or dinitrogen satisfied the nitrogen requirement for biosynthesis. The functional data was in complete agreement with the 16srRNA homologies as compared with other Methylomonas strains. 16sRNA comparisons or the 16a strain comparisons with other Methylomonas sp. revealed that M.16a had 96 % identity with the 16sRNA of Methylomonas sp.. Thus M.16a was correctly classified as a Type I, RuMP utilizing, Methylomonas species.