George Smoot of the Physics Division represented Berkeley Lab at the signing of an agreement with representatives of South Korea’s University of Incheon to explore the potential for joint scientific research in energy, biology, accelerators, cosmology, and space. The agreement calls for investigation of possible collaborations in which the University of Incheon would provide facilities and Berkeley Lab would provide research programs.

In revisiting a chemical reaction that’s been in the literature for several decades and adding a new wrinkle of their own, researchers with Berkeley Lab and UC Berkeley have discovered a mild and relatively inexpensive procedure for removing oxygen from biomass. This procedure, if it can be effectively industrialized, could allow many of today’s petrochemical products, including plastics, to instead be made from biomass.

A “Life Cycle Impact Assessment” has shown that a biofuel eliminating even 10-percent of current gasoline pollutant emissions would have a substantial impact on human health in this country, especially in urban areas.

Berkeley Lab’s Jay Keasling has been selected by the Biotechnology Industry Organization (BIO) to receive its first annual Biotech Humanitarian Award. Keasling was recognized for his use of synthetic biology techniques to develop a simple and much less expensive means of making artemisinin, today’s most powerful anti-malaria drug.

Microbial communities in tropical forest soils rank among the most efficient biomass break-down engines on Earth. Harnessing their power could lead to improved ways of converting plant material into biofuels.

Ionic liquids - salts that are liquids rather than crystals at room temperature - are expected to play a staring role in the transformation of biomass into
sustainable and carbon-neutral transportation fuels once more is known about their unique ability to dissolve lignocellulosic biomass and hydrolyze sugars. Berkeley Lab researchers, through a grant from the Energy Biosciences Institute, are making progress.

A new research technique from the Joint BioEnergy Institute provides vital information on microbial metabolism in a fraction of the time required for conventional scientific methods. The technique was successfully tested on an extremophile that shows great promise for producing biofuels from cellulosic biomass.

Contact: Ron Kolb, (510) 486-7586, rrkolb@lbl.gov

(BERKELEY, CA) The strategic partners in the Energy Biosciences Institute—BP, the University of California, Berkeley, the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory and the University of Illinois—announced today that the contract finalizing the formation of EBI has been signed and the Institute’s work is officially underway.

Dr. Christopher Somerville

The Institute will [...]