Biosciences Area

JBEI Invention Leads to More Efficient Biofuel Production for Industrial Application

New Biosynthesis Pathways for Five-Carbon Alcohol from Mevalonate Are Available For Licensing

Researchers at the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE)’s Joint BioEnergy Institute (JBEI) have developed two novel biosynthesis pathways for five-carbon alcohol (isopentenol or 3-methyl-3-buten-1-ol) from mevalonate that reduce the energy demand and cost of earlier applications of the mevalonate pathway by using genetically engineered host cells, whose culturing stage can happen both in anaerobic or aerobic conditions. This invention can be used in an industrial scale, even under oxygen-limited conditions. These modified pathways would be a good platform for industrial production of isopentenol which is a potential gasoline alternative and a precursor of commodity chemicals such as isoprene. Read more on the JBEI website.

Breaking the Xylose Bottleneck

Xylose utilization remains the primary bottleneck in fully using the renewable plant biomass. In a Nature Scientific Reports paper entitled, “Evolved hexose transporter enhances xylose uptake and glucose/xylose co-utilization in Saccharomyces cerevisiae,” Biological Systems & Engineering Division researchers at Joint BioEnergy Institute (JBEI) Amanda Reider Apel and Aindrila Mukhopadhyay report the discovery and characterization of a yeast sugar transporter variant with superior Vmax (uptake rates) for xylose. This discovery will be valuable in developing biomanufacturing strains that can use the full set of sugars generated from plant biomass. Read more on the JBEI website.

JBEI Appoints New VP and Deputy VP of Fuels Synthesis Division

The Department of Energy’s Joint Bioenergy Institute (JBEI) Chief Executive Officer, Jay Keasling, has announced that Aindrila Mukhopadhyay will step into the role of Vice President of the Fuels Synthesis Division. This announcement comes after a national search and interview process. Mukhopadhyay, who joined the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (Berkeley Lab) in 2003, will continue to serve as Director of JBEI’s Host Engineering group and as Interim Division Director of Berkeley Lab’s Biological Systems and Engineering (BSE) in the Biosciences Area.

JBEI Researchers Develop First High-Gravity One-Pot Process for Producing Cellulosic Ethanol

JBEI researchers Seema Singh and Blake Simmons of the Biological Systems and Engineering Division led the development of a “high-gravity” one-pot process for producing ethanol from cellulosic biomass that gives unprecedented yields while minimizing water use and waste disposal. “High gravity” means high biomass loading – the higher the biomass loading, the lower the costs for converting it to fuels. Read more at Berkeley Lab News Center.

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