Biomass to Biofuel: Designing Yeast Strains Capable of Converting Energy Crops and Waste Products to a Useable Form of Biofuel – (Ph.D.)

As the world enters a post fossil fuel era, there is a need to identify alternative environmentally sustainable energy sources. Perennial grasses contain substantial reservoirs of energy in the form of cellulose which can be broken down to simple sugars by enzymes called cellulases.

The sugars can then be converted to ethanol through fermentation. Currently, there is no single microorganism that can carry out both processes. The goal of this project is to generate a microbe capable of producing cellulose-degrading enzymes and efficiently converting the released sugars to ethanol.

Based on their high fermentative capacity, industrial yeasts are ideal candidates for producing high-levels of bio-ethanol. These yeasts will be bioengineered to breakdown cellulose by introducing genes encoding three classes of cellulases into the genome. We will then test the ability of the bioengineered yeast to convert cellulose present in crops such as perennial grasses or waste agricultural material into bio-ethanol.