Canadian researchers looking at toxic sulfite liquor as ethanol feedstock

In Canada, Damien Biot-Pelletier, a Concordia PhD candidate in biology, is building on the findings of a previous Concordia grad student: Dominic Pinel, who produced a strain of yeast that is resistant to sulfite liquor—the toxic byproduct of the pulp and paper industry—and transforms its sugars into ethanol. Biot-Pelletier is now trying to discover what exactly made that specific strain of yeast resistant, so the knowledge can be applied to other yeast strains and other toxic mixtures.