NOVELTY - Producing a ketone comprises: (a) providing fatty acids; (b) providing modified cells and/or modified organisms that produce OleA proteins; (c) providing conditions to produce the OleA proteins; and (d) providing conditions to produce ketones from the fatty acids in the presence of the OleA proteins.    USE - The methods are used for producing a ketone, a beta-keto-acid, and a hydrocarbon; modifying a bacterial organism to produce altered hydrocarbon relative to the wild-type bacterial organism; controlling the synthesis of a hydrocarbon and a ketone; controlling the synthesis of an energy storage molecule; and extracting a mixture of ketones from a biological culture (all claimed).    DETAILED DESCRIPTION - INDEPENDENT CLAIMS are included for:    (1) a method of producing a beta-keto-acid comprising: (a) providing fatty acids; (b) providing modified cells and/or modified organisms that produce OleA proteins; (c) providing conditions to produce the OleA proteins; and (d) providing conditions to produce beta-keto-acids from the fatty acids in the presence of the OleA proteins;    (2) a method of producing a hydrocarbon comprising: (a) providing modified cells and/or modified organisms that produce fatty acids and produce an OleA protein, an OleC protein, and an OleD protein; (b) providing conditions to produce an OleA protein, an OleC protein, and an OleD protein; and (c) providing conditions to produce hydrocarbons from the fatty acids in the presence of an OleA protein, an OleC protein, and an OleD protein;    (3) a modified bacterial organism that has altered hydrocarbon production relative to the wild-type bacterial organism;    (4) a modified bacterial organism that has altered ketone production relative to a corresponding unmodified bacterial organism;    (5) a method of modifying a bacterial organism to produce altered hydrocarbon relative to the wild-type bacterial organism comprising: (a) removing genomic nucleic acid that encodes OleA, OleB, OleC, or OleD proteins; and (b) inserting nucleic acid that encodes a heterologous protein having fatty acyl condensase function;    (6) a method of controlling the synthesis of a hydrocarbon comprising: (a) providing a modified bacterial organism; and (b) culturing the modified bacterial organism under conditions to produce one or more hydrocarbons;    (7) a method of controlling the synthesis of a ketone comprising: (a) providing the modified bacterial organism; and (c) culturing the modified bacterial organism under conditions to produce ketones;    (8) a method of controlling the synthesis of an energy storage molecule comprising: (a) providing the modified bacterial organism; and (b) culturing the modified bacterial organism under conditions to produce one or more energy storage molecules;    (9) a hydrocarbon mixture produced by the method above;    (10) a ketone mixture produced by the method above;    (11) an isolated and purified nucleic acid construct comprising nucleic acids encoding an OleA protein;    (12) a vector comprising the isolated and purified nucleic acid;    (13) a cell comprising the vector; and    (14) a method of extracting a mixture of ketones from a biological culture comprising: (a) providing a culture comprising the modified bacterial organism; (b) growing the culture under conditions where the ketones are produced in the culture; (c) preparing an organic extract from the culture; and (d) purifying ketones from the extract.