Energy Biosciences Institute taps 49 for $20 million in biofuels research grants

In California, the Energy Biosciences Institute named the first recipients of $20 million in biofuels research funding. The institute received a $500 million grant from BP last year. A total of 49 projects received funding, 19 from the University of California. 19 projects focused on finding better ways to isolate sugar molecules, while 17 focused on the impact of biofuel production in social, environmental and economic terms.

The EBI lab at Emeryville  will fuse the research efforts of UC-Berkeley, UC- Davis, the Carnegie Institution for Science, Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory , Lawrence Livermore and Sandia.
The lab will be funded by the US Department of Energy, and also will benefit from a $500 million grant from BP. It will focus on several areas of research, including feedstocks such as rice straw, switchgrass and Arabidopsis, a plant in the mustard family. The consortium is also looking at termites for their ability to convert cellulose to sugars.

The November issue of Nature profiles research on enzymes found in termite guts.

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