US govt backs bioproducts research with USD 40m

The US Department of Energy (DOE) on Monday said it will provide USD 40 million (EUR 34.5m) in funding to support research that would advance the production of biofuels and other products from renewable resources.

Total of 31 projects have been awarded funds under two separate DOE Funding Opportunity Announcements -- Systems Biology of Bioenergy-Relevant Microbes and Bioimaging Research for Bioenergy.

The projects to be supported seek to bolster the production capabilities of already identified organisms or to identify new organisms. Organisms under study range from yeast and fungi to cyanobacteria and rare thermophilic microbes, while the range of products includes biofuels, alcohols and other valuable precursor chemicals with multiple possible downstream applications.

“In coming years, the revolution in biotechnology and bio-based production methods are expected to transform the face of industry,” said energy secretary Rick Perry. “These projects will help ensure that America continues to lead the way in developing the knowledge and expertise needed to capitalize on the many new opportunities of the emerging bioenergy fields.”

The DOE noted that a third of the projects are focused on developing and improving key imaging tools. Several of the projects aim to enhance capabilities for real-time “in situ” imaging -- observing in real-time how microscopic processes happen in detail at the cellular level.

The University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign is among the awardees with a project titled “Dissecting the division of labor in microbial consortia for the production of biofuels and chemicals”. The University of Minnesota will be working on “Gene regulatory networks enabling fungi to selectively extract sugars from lignocellulose”. “Harnessing photoautotroph-methanotroph interactions for biogas conversion to fuels and chemicals using binary consortia” is a project by Auburn University in the DOE’s list. Washington University, St. Louis is also there with “Systems analysis of a fast growing N2-fixing cyanobacterium for production of advanced biofuels and nitrogen-containing petrochemical replacement compounds”.

The full list of projects that will receive funding is available at https://science.energy.gov/~/media/4C7317A50AF94F069737C2C58B917F83.ashx.

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