Y. H. Percival Zhang an associate professor of biological systems engineering in the College of Agriculture
This bioprocess called simultaneous enzymatic biotransformation and microbial fermentation is easy to scale up for commercial production.
Support for the current research comes from the Department of Biological Systems Engineering at Virginia Tech.
Additional resources were contributed by the Virginia Tech College of Agriculture and Life sciences'Biodesign and Bioprocessing Research center the Shell Gamechanger Program and the U s. Department of energy Bioenergy Science Center along with the Division of Chemical sciences
Geosciences and Biosciences Office of Basic Energy Sciences of the Department of energy. Chen was supported partially by the China Scholarship Council.
United states 517-432-4412 rosejo@msu. edulinking advances in genomics research mathematics and earth sciences as well as novel engineering technologies is imperative
protecting water resources and restoring an economically vital coastline we will need to invest in the characterization of our water microbiological communities and shift the pollution science paradigm toward an understanding of risk and resilience under global change.
and land use change and our energy choices (such as biofuels oil sands and shale gas). In this talk we discuss the drivers affecting water sustainability
Technological solutions to these problems that employ the latest developments in materials science chemistry biology and electronics are capable of greatly enhancing the performance of these systems.
Convergence of nanotechnology and microbiology: Emerging opportunities for water disinfection integrated urban water management and risk assessment1.
The convergence of nanotechnology with environmental microbiology could expand the limits of technology enhance global health through safer water reuse
This is especially true for the cellulase enzymes used to release fermentable sugars from cellulosic biomass for the production of advanced biofuels.
Now researchers with the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (Berkeley Lab) through support from the Energy Biosciences Institute (EBI) have shed literally new light on cellulase catalysis. Using an ultrahigh-precision visible light microscopy
Increasing the sugar yields from cellulosic biomass to help bring down biofuel production costs is essential for the widespread commercial adoption of these fuels.
The enzymatic breakdown of cellulosic biomass into fermentable sugars has been the Achilles heel of biofuels a key economic bottleneck says chemical engineer Harvey Blanch one of the leaders of this research.
Synthesized from the sugars in the cellulosic biomass of grasses other non-food crops and agricultural waste advanced biofuels represent a sustainable nonpolluting source of transportation fuel that would also generate domestic jobs and revenue.
A recent report from the National Research Council stressed the need for advanced biofuels if the United states is to significantly reduce its use of fossil fuels in the coming decades.
Fossil fuels are responsible for the annual release of nearly nine billion metric tons of excess carbon into the atmosphere.
Unlike the simple starch-based glucose sugars in corn and other grains the sugars in cellulosic biomass are complex polysaccharides that must be extricated from a tough polymer called lignin
either crystalline or amorphous but these categories were probably more reflec tive of the limitations of imaging methods than the underlying structural organization of the cellulose says Jerome Fox lead author of the Nature Chemical Biology paper
The new PALM-based technique should allow enzyme cock tails to be matched optimally to the structural organizations of particular biomass substrates such as grass
which in turn will help reduce biofuel production costs. The technique also has applications beyond biofuels. Our technique takes us toward a much more complete understanding of how enzymes work on solid surfaces Blanch says.
With this technique we should be able to tell where any enzyme binds to a solid material
Our new process could help end our dependence on fossil fuels said Y. H. Percival Zhang an associate professor of biological systems engineering in the College of Agriculture and Life sciences and the College of Engineering.
Hydrogen is one of the most important biofuels of the future. Zhang and his team have succeeded in using xylose the most abundant simple plant sugar to produce a large quantity of hydrogen that previously was attainable only in theory.
Zhang's method can be performed using any source of biomass. The discovery is featured a editor's choice in an online version of the chemistry journal Angewandte Chemie International Edition.
Jonathan R. Mielenz group leader of the bioscience and technology biosciences division at the Oak ridge National Laboratory who is familiar with Zhang's work
This amounts to a significant additional benefit to hydrogen production and it reduces the overall cost of producing hydrogen from biomass.
Obstacles to commercial production of hydrogen gas from biomass previously included the high cost of the processes used and the relatively low quantity of the end product.
Other processes that convert sugar into biofuels such as ethanol and butanol always have energy efficiencies of less than 100 percent resulting in an energy penalty.
Support for the current research comes from the Department of Biological Systems Engineering at Virginia Tech.
Additional resources were contributed by the Shell Gamechanger Program the Virginia Tech College of Agriculture and Life sciences'Biodesign and Bioprocessing Research center and the U s. Department of energy Bioenergy Science Center along with the Division of Chemical sciences
Geosciences and Biosciences Office of Basic Energy Sciences of the Department of energy. The lead author of the article Julia S. Martin Del Campo who works in Zhang's lab received her Ph d. grant from the Mexican Council of Science and Technology.
By monitoring the genetic changes in CTCS and their invasiveness in a tissue culture dish doctors may be able to quickly adjust their treatment plans in response We are optimistic that the use of our Nanovelcro CTC technology will revolutionize prostate cancer treatment.
We hope the comprehensive understanding of cancer biology at the individual level will ultimately lead to better therapy choice for patients suffering from advanced cancer.
which reveals mutations in the genetic material of the cells and may help doctors personalize therapies to a patient's unique cancer.
Researchers from the Chinese Academy of Science Jonsson Comprehensive Cancer Center at UCLA and VA Greater Los angeles Healthcare System Beijing Genomics Institute in China Cytolumina Technologies
Hirasaki Rice's A j. Hartsook Professor of Chemical and Biomolecular engineering said employing waste heat is just one example of a number of ways that Rice's team is looking to improve upon a tried-and-true technology for CO2 capture.
Study co-authors include Michael Wong professor of chemical and biomolecular engineering and of chemistry and Ken Cox professor in the practice of chemical and biomolecular engineering.
the use of alternative fuels like biofuels electricity and hydrogen; and strong government policies to overcome high costs and influence consumer choices.
Each combines highly efficient vehicles with at least one of three alternative power sources--biofuel electricity or hydrogen.
and biodiesel are the only biofuels to have been produced in commercial quantities in the U s. to date the study committee found much greater potential in biofuels made from lignocellulosic biomass
The report finds that sufficient lignocellulosic biomass could be produced by 2050 to meet the goal of an 80 percent reduction in petroleum use
greener concrete with biofuel byproductskansas State university civil engineers are developing the right mix to reduce concrete's carbon footprint
biofuel byproducts. The idea is to use bioethanol production byproducts to produce a material to use in concrete as a partial replacement of cement said Feraidon Ataie doctoral student in civil engineering Kabul Afghanistan.
They are finding success using the byproducts of biofuels made from corn stover wheat straw and rice straw.
which is produced biofuel from inedible material such as wood chips wheat straw or other agricultural residue.
and grain to make biofuel. Corn ethanol's byproduct--called distiller's dried grains--can be used as cattle feed
We have been working on applying viable biofuel pretreatments to materials to see if we can improve the behavior
This has the potential to make biofuel manufacture more cost effective by better using all of the resources that are being wasted
and biofuel production Ataie said. If you use this in concrete to increase strength and quality then you add value to this byproduct rather than just landfilling it
Baker then learned that Lakhtakia was able to replicate certain biological materials such as fly eyes and butterfly wings.
To achieve the targeted cuts we would need a scenario where by the middle of the century the global economy is transitioning from net positive to net negative CO2 emissions said report co-author Chris Field a professor of biology and of environmental Earth
In the GCEP report Field and lead author Jennifer Milne describe a suite of emerging carbon-negative solutions to global warming--from bioenergy technologies to ocean sequestration.
One of the most promising net-negative technologies is BECCS or bioenergy with carbon capture and storage.
A typical BECCS system converts woody biomass grass and other vegetation into electricity chemical products or fuels such as ethanol.
But according to the GCEP report major technical and economic hurdles must be overcome such as the relative inefficiency of biomass fuels and the high cost of carbon capture and storage (CCS.
and to recycle the revenues to subsidize captured emissions from biomass Ricci said. A carbon tax would put a price on CO2 emissions
In addition to long-term stability questions have been raised about the impact of biochar on soil conservation biodiversity and water use.
if the biochar is made from waste biomass sustainably harvested crop residues or crops grown on abandoned land that has reverted not to forest.
or microbiology-related problem Alvarez said. And it truly is a serious problem. But what many people miss is that it is also an environmental pollution problem.
and the associated antibiotic-resistant genes that find their way into the ground water and ultimately the food supply.
That means they will drop genes they're not using because there is a metabolic burden a high energy cost to keeping them.
and E coli which carries resistant genes directly from animals through their feces into the environment.
But P. aeruginosa completely shed the genetic element responsible for resistance which made it susceptible once again to antibiotics.
If any antibiotic-resistant bacteria are part of a biological mix whether in a person an animal or in the environment the weak microbes will die
this process is known by biologists as selective pressure. So there is incentive to eliminate the resistance plasmid from bacteria in the environment as close to the source as possible.
If we can put an anaerobic barrier at the point where a lagoon drains into the environment we will essentially exert selective pressure for the loss of antibiotic-resistant genes
but it's enough to have bacteria notice a deficiency in their ability to obtain energy from the environment and feel the stress to dump resistant genes.
His study of the Haihe River in China funded by the Chinese government and published last year found tetracycline resistance genes are common in the environment there as well.
Prevention here is basically don't let these genes proliferate. Don't let them amplify in the environment.
#Bioinspired fibers change color when stretcheda team of materials scientists at Harvard university and the University of Exeter UK have invented a new fiber that changes color when stretched.
which has evolved to serve a specific biological function has inspired an extremely useful and interesting technological design.
and more effective toxicity tests for airborne chemicals scientists from Rice university and the Rice spinoff company Nano3d Biosciences have used magnetic levitation to grow some of the most realistic lung tissue ever produced in a laboratory.
The research is part of an international trend in biomedical engineering to create laboratory techniques for growing tissues that are virtually identical to those found in people's bodies.
Killian and fellow scientists from Rice and the University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center co-founded Nano3d Biosciences in 2009 after creating a technology that uses magnetism to levitate
Growing realistic lung tissues in vitro is a particular challenge said study co-author Jane Grande-Allen professor of bioengineering at Rice.
Nano3d Biosciences won a Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR grant from the National Science Foundation (NSF) in 2011 to create a four-layered lung tissue from endothelial cells smooth muscle cells
when Rice bioengineering graduate student Hubert Tseng joined the research team as an intern. Tseng was already a student in Grande-Allen's lab one of Rice's leading laboratories for tissue-engineering research.
and layers of in vitro bronchiole tissue created at Rice university and Nano3d Biosciences. The cell layers include epithelial cells (Epic) smooth muscle cells (SMC) pulmonary fibroblasts (PF) and pulmonary endothelial cells (PEC.
and the tissue has the same biochemical signature as native tissue Tseng said. We also used primary cells rather than engineered cells
Study co-authors include Robert Raphael professor of bioengineering at Rice and cofounder of Nano3d Biosciences;
and former BCM scientist Jacob Gage now with Nano3d Biosciences. The research was funded by NSF and the Texas Emerging Technologies Fund.
Also assisting with funding was the N c. Biotechnology Center through a Collaborative Funding Grant. The goal of the startup company known as HCEC LLC (Human Cultured Endothelial Cells) is to advance the technology to the next level
The technique of bioengineering replacement tissues using cells and scaffolds can theoretically be applied to almost any tissue in the body said Anthony Atala M d. director of the Wake Forest Institute for Regenerative Medicine.
We've produced an imaging system to evaluate the root systems of plants in field conditions said Alexander Bucksch a postdoctoral fellow in the Georgia Tech School of Biology and School of Interactive Computing.
We can measure entire root systems for thousands of plants to give geneticists the information they need to search for genes with the best characteristics.
The research is supported by the National Science Foundation's Plant Genome Research Program (PGRP) and Basic Research to Enable Agriculture Development (BREAD) the Howard Buffett Foundation the Burroughs Wellcome Fund and the Center for Data analytics at Georgia Tech.
In the lab you are just seeing part of the process of root growth said Bucksch who works in the group of Associate professor Joshua Weitz in the School of Biology and School of Physics at Georgia Tech.
and collaborated with leading plant root biologists from the Lynch group to study complex root structure under field conditions said Weitz.
Data generated by the new technique will be used in subsequent analyses to help understand how changes in genetics affect plant growth.
For instance certain genes may help plants survive in nitrogen-poor soils or in areas where drought is a problem.
According to Thomas C. Baker distinguished professor of biology Penn State the findings were possible only because of the multidisciplinary makeup of the team.
And now new findings out of the genetics professor's lab promise to advance that technology even further.
His team also presented its results this month at the annual meeting of the American Society of Plant Biologists in Portland Oregon.
which uses light as a tool to drive biological change. Story Source: The above story is provided based on materials by University of Wisconsin-Madison.
and Edwin Thomas the William and Stephanie Sick Dean of Rice's George R. Brown School of engineering professor in mechanical engineering and materials science and in chemical and biomolecular engineering.
In a paper published in this weekâ##s early online edition of Nature they report the discovery of a new genetic pathway in plants made up of four genes from three different gene families that control the density
Their discovery should help biologists better understand how the steadily increasing levels of CO2 in our atmosphere (which last spring for the first time in recorded history remained above 400 parts per million) are affecting the ability of plants and economically important crops to deal with heat stress and drought.
through their stomataâ#explains Julian Schroeder a professor of biology who headed the research effort. â#oebecause elevated CO2 reduces the density of stomatal pores in leaves this is at first sight beneficial for plants as they would lose less water.
and biofuel production. â#oeour research is aimed at understanding the fundamental mechanisms and genes by which CO2 represses stomatal pore developmentâ#says Schroeder.
Working in a tiny mustard plant called Arabidopsis which is used as a genetic model and shares many of the same genes as other plants and crops he and his team of biologists discovered that the proteins encoded by the four genes they discovered repress the development of stomata at elevated CO2 levels.
Using a combination of systems biology and bioinformatic techniques the scientists cleverly isolated proteins which when mutated abolished the plantâ##s ability to respond to CO2 stress.
Cawas Engineer a postdoctoral scientist in Schroederâ##s lab and the first author of the study found that
when plants sense atmospheric CO2 levels rising they increase their expression of a key peptide hormone called Epidermal Patterning Factor-2 EPF2. â#oethe EPF2 peptide acts like a morphogen
and genes have the potential to address a wide range of critical agricultural problems in the future including the limited availability of water for crops the need to increase water use efficiency in lawns as well as crops
by the continuing atmospheric CO2 rise are palpable these advances could become of interest to crop biologists
reducing emissions sequestering carbon through biological means on land and in the ocean storing carbon dioxide in a liquefied form in underground geological formations and wells increasing Earth's cloud cover and solar reflection.
Of the five options the group evaluated sequestering carbon through biological means --or converting atmospheric carbon into solid sources of carbon like plants--holds the most promise.
Improving soil management is another biological means of carbon sequestration that holds considerable promise because soils can trap plant materials that have converted already atmospheric carbon dioxide into a solid form as well as any carbon dioxide that the solids give off as they decompose.
The study also advocates a less familiar form of biological sequestration: the burial of biochar.
But not all biological sequestration would be so beneficial. The researchers evaluated the idea of adding iron to oceans
Among the technologies evaluated in situ are floor type in cattle housing use of additives in slurry storage manure turning flexible lagoons for collective slurry storage biowashers for gases at the outlet of air ducts of the sheds
If humankind does not control the growth in greenhouse gas emissions in the next decade it increases the likelihood that we will need negative-emissions technologies such as bioenergy with CO2 capture
#Instrument built to study effects of genes, environment on plant traitslet's say plant scientists want to develop new lines of corn that will better tolerate long stretches of hot dry weather.
We are building resources to benefit plant biology researchers and hopefully the new instrumentation will create a paradigm shift in the plant phenomics area by placing powerful data analysis capability in the hands of researchers.
The images record traits such as leaf color root development and shoot size giving researchers clues to the relationship between a plant's genotype the growing conditions and the observable traits of its phenotype.
One day he hopes to have a commercial instrument that can be used by biological researchers around the world.
Linden is working closely with project co-investigators Professor R. Scott Summers of environmental engineering and Professor Alan Weimer chemical and biological engineering and a team of postdoctoral fellows professionals
and to improve plants'productivity and biofuel potential. Two articles published March 11 in The Plant Cell offer a step-by-step approach for studying plant traits drawing on comprehensive quantitative research on lignin formation in black cottonwood.
However lignin must be removed for biofuel pulp and paper production-a process that involves harsh chemicals and expensive treatments.
The research provides a new approach integrating knowledge of genes proteins plant chemical compounds and engineering modeling to understand how plants make products
This work in the new area of plant systems biology integrating biology chemistry and engineering sets a new standard for understanding any complex biological feature in the future.
I describe these findings as Mapquest for plant scientists says Vincent Chiang co-director of NC State's Forest Biotechnology Group the lead team for the project which involved scientists in the College of Natural resources College of Engineering
For example the systems biology approach could be applied in research to develop sweeter citrus fruit disease-resistant rice or drought-resistant trees.
and composition of lignin as well as why it's often difficult to modify lignin in plants says Ronald Sederoff co-director of Forest Biotechnology Group.
National Science Foundation Plant Genome Research Program Grant (DBI-0922391) supported graduate students Jina Song and Punith Naik from the College of Engineering;
#Biofuel-to-hydrocarbon conversion technology licensedvertimass LLC a California-based start-up company has licensed an Oak ridge National Laboratory technology that directly converts ethanol into a hydrocarbon blend-stock for use in transportation fuels.
The ORNL technology offers a new pathway to biomass-derived renewable fuels that can lower greenhouse gas emissions and decrease U s. reliance on foreign sources of oil.
poplar wood and corn stover into biofuels. The technology could also supply a source of renewable jet fuel required by recent European union aviation emission regulations.
Preliminary ORNL analysis in collaboration with the National Renewable Energy Laboratory in Colorado shows the catalytic technology could be retrofitted into existing bio-alcohol refineries at various stages of ethanol purification.
Initial funds were from the ORNL Laboratory Directed Research and development and Technology Innovation programs and from the Bioenergy Science Center
Commercialization will lead to the widespread use of proprietary Vertimass technology for low cost production of sustainable transportation fuels for aircraft and heavy and light duty vehicles from multiple sources of biomass on a large scale.
#New technique promises cheaper second-generation biofuel for carsproducing second-generation biofuel from dead plant tissue is environmetally friendly
The production of second generation biofuels thus becomes cheaper probably attracting many more producers and competition and this may finally bring the price down.
Cellulose is the most common biological material in the world so there is plenty of it he adds.
The research offers new perspective on evolutionary biology microbiology and the production of natural gas and may shed light on climate change agriculture and human health.
By looking at this one mechanism that was studied not previously we will be able to develop new basic information that potentially has broad impact on contemporary issues ranging from climate change to obesity said Biswarup Mukhopadhyay an associate professor of biochemistry at the Virginia Tech
Plant and microbial biology professor emeritus Bob B. Buchanan co-led the research and co-authored the paper.
This innovative work demonstrates the importance of a new global regulatory system in methanogens said William Whitman a professor of microbiology at the University of Georgia who is familiar with the study
When plants die some of their biomass is trapped in areas that are devoid of oxygen such as the bottom of lakes.
Methanogens help convert the residual biological material to methane which other organisms convert to carbon dioxide--a product that can be used by plants.
Dwi Susanti the lead author recently received her doctoral degree in genetics bioinformatics and computational biology from the Virginia Bioinformatics Institute and is currently a postdoctoral scholar in the Department of Biochemistry at Virginia Tech.
Usha Loganathan a graduate student in the Department of Biological sciences in the College of Science at Virginia Tech also participated in the study.
William H. Vensel of the Western Regional Research center in Albany Calif. provided proteomics expertise as did Joshua Wong of University of California Berkeley.
Rebecca De Santis and Ruth Schmitz-Streit of University of Kiel in Germany and Monica Balsera of the Institute of Natural resources and Agrobiology of Salamanca in Spain also worked on the projectgrants from the National Science Foundation the National aeronautics and space administration
Helps babies struggling to breathethe first clinical study of a low-cost neonatal breathing system created by Rice university bioengineering students demonstrated that the device increased the survival rate of newborns with severe respiratory illness from 44
In 2010 a team of Rice bioengineering students invented a low-cost bubble CPAP device. The technology which costs about 15 times less than conventional CPAP machines was created as part the Rice 360â°:
when CPAP was introduced first here said Rice's Rebecca Richards-Kortum the Stanley C. Moore Professor and chair of the Department of Bioengineering and director of both BTB and Rice 360â°.
The interdisciplinary effort involved evolutionary biology biomechanics and mechanical engineering. The research was funded in part by National Science Foundation grants.
which allows us to assess the biomechanical characteristics of very different bats. Adaptation shaped by natural selection is the key mechanism that explains diversity
if these limits may arise through natural selection that is not solely focused on the biomechanics. Distribution of hypothetical species based on snout length and width.
My goal as a scientist is to uncover the evolutionary forces that have shaped biodiversity says Dr. Dá
and most recently at Columbia University where he's now an associate professor of biological sciences and physics.
Sahin collaborated with Wyss Institute Core Faculty member L. Mahadevan Ph d. who is also the Lola England de Valpine professor of applied mathematics organismic and evolutionary biology and physics at the School of engineering and Applied sciences
D. a professor of microbiology and immunology at Loyola University Chicago Stritch School of medicine. The researchers reported their work yesterday in Nature Nanotechnology.
Specifically he had characterized how moisture deforms materials including biological materials such as pinecones leaves and flowers as well as human-made materials such as a sheet of tissue paper lying in a dish of water.
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