Aymerick Eudes and Dominique Loqué of the Joint Bioenergy Institute (JBEI) led a study that shows for the first time that an enzyme can be tweaked to reduce lignin in plants. Their technique could help lower the cost of converting biomass into carbon-neutral fuels to power your car and other sustainably developed bio-products. The crystal structure of this enzyme was solved using data collected in the Berkeley Center for Structural Biology at the Advanced Light Source. Read more on the Berkeley Lab News Center.
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.
The Secretary of Energy Advisory Board (SEAB) held a public session at Emery Station
The Secretary of Energy Advisory Board (SEAB) held a public session on Tuesday, January 26 at the Biosciences Area’s Emery Station Operations Center (ESOC). Berkeley Lab’s Director Paul Alivisatos gave a Lab overview. Jennifer Doudna was invited by SEAB to give a briefing of CRISPR-Cas and Ilan Gur led a roundtable discussion on the activities of … Read more »
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.
Was this page useful?