In light of the ongoing shortage of oil and increasing cost of petroleum, the use of renewable plant biomass for the production of biofuels has become an attractive alternative. However, for biofuels to have an economic and environmental impact, the biomass feedstock from which biofuels are produced must be widely available at low cost and incur no additional negative environmental impact. Lignocellulosic biomass, the inedible material found in many plants including switchgrass, wheatstraw, pine and corn stover, is an inexpensive and abundant feedstock, with over 40 million tons produced every year. However, the inability to efficiently harness and convert the carbohydrates from lignocellulosic biomass into biofuels has hindered its use. Many currently used industrial methods require the lignocellulosic biomass to be thermochemically pretreated and then hydrolyzed using enzymes produced by Trichoderma reesei. While high yields can be obtained using this approach, it is both costly and inefficient.  Therefore, researchers have turned to a new method whereby a single microbe is able to convert lignocellulose into valuable end products such as ethanol, a process collectively referred to as consolidated bioprocessor (CBP).  At present, only a few CBP microbes have been developed, none of which are widely used in industry. Bacillus subtilis is a promising CBP that is used to produce a range of compounds including proteins, antibiotics and insecticides. However, like many other CBP microbes, native strains of B. subtilis cannot efficiently degrade lignocellulose. Therefore, due to the burgeoning use of lignocellulose, there is an urgent need to develop a microorganism to efficiently degrade lignocellulose feedstocks for the production of biofuels. (more...)

Intracellular pH Sensor Using Surface Enhanced Raman Spectroscopy (SERS) (more...)

An all-in-one process to produce biofuels and commodity chemicals from lignocellulosic biomass. (more...)

Research for a novel endo-hydrogenase enzyme in purple non-sulfur phonsynthethic bacteria able to produce and output hydrogen gas at sustained high rates when coupled to photophosphorylation in phototrophic cultures has been long sought after. Attempts have been made to genetically reconfigure the gene-set encoding of endo-hydrogenase; whereby enhancing endo-hydrogenase activity for in vivo hydrogen gas production. Distinguishable results from research on direct in vivo conversion of light energy into H2 gas, as a biofuel, has recently come to light at UCSC. (more...)

Disinfection of water, plants, skin and wounds is critical for public health, horticulture, and medicine.  Current disinfection methods are relatively expensive, large in size and complexity, and typically require toxic chemicals. Plasma-generated reactive oxygen and nitrogen species (ROS/RNS) in air or other gases at or near room temperature are known to have antimicrobial and other biological and materials processing activity through direct interactions or indirectly via liquid phase applications.  However, these methods currently have serious limitations to broader applications.To address this challenge, University of California investigators have developed improved antimicrobial atmospheric pressure plasmas.  These new antimicrobial atmospheric pressure plasmas significantly enhance the efficacy of currently available systems by combining these species with a separate source of photons. In particular, ultraviolet (UV) photons have been shown by the investigators to greatly increase the antimicrobial effectiveness of plasma-generated ROS/RNS.  These antimicrobial atmospheric pressure plasmas can be used for water, surface, skin and wound disinfection.  The improved antimicrobial atmospheric pressure plasmas create chemically active species in gases or standard atmospheric pressure plasmas with photons, such ultraviolet wavelengths.  These improved antimicrobial atmospheric pressure plasmas combines the open-gas atmospheric pressure plasma to generate radicals and other reactive species with separate photon sources, such as LEDs, to generate UV and visible wavelength photons to interact synergistically with the chemical radicals.  This combination results in novel power and control for important applications exploiting reactive chemical species. Additionally, these improved antimicrobial atmospheric pressure plasmas use relatively inexpensive and simple devices, relatively small amounts of electricity, air and water. The chemical species created are relatively innocuous.  (more...)

Investigators at UC Berkeley have developed an alternative approach to engineer the shikimate pathway in E. coli. The native pathway was reconstructed in a modular fashion to remove bottlenecks and optimize the flux and production by improving promoters and regulatory elements.Using these modifications to the shikimate pathway resulted in strains that produce high yields of tyrosine and other valuable intermediates such as shikimate and dehydroshikimate and also dehydroquinate and quinate.This pathway engineering can also be used for production of other aromatic amino acids, tryptophan and phenylalanine at high yields as well as additional intermediates such as phenylpyruvate, anthranilate, and others. These constructed metabolic pathways can be transferred to other strains or microorganisms. (more...)

The efficiency of conventional separation methods such as centrifugation, filtration or sedimentation is generally poor and energy consumption is high when the target solids are small, have a density similar to that of the fluid phase and are fragile. To address some of the deficiencies of conventional separation methods, researchers at UC Davis have invented a new device for separating solids from liquid or air that is based on biomimetic concepts. This new device uses fluid dynamics principles to overcome some of the deficiencies of conventional methods and provides an economical and effective alternative for the separation of difficult to remove particles. Details of the device such as dimensions, shape and structures can be modified to achieve optimum performance with particles of different size and specific gravity. The device can be scaled up or down depending on the amount of fluid to be treated hence can be used in diverse settings. (more...)

Alginates have been used for decades for the encapsulation of biological molecules, cells and chemicals. The traditional encapsulation process involved dissolving or dispersing the active agent in a sodium alginate solution, forcing the solution through an orifice to form a droplet which was then cross-linked by contact with a calcium chloride solution. This process was not easily scaled-up and was limited to particles larger than 500 μm. Spray-drying would be a commercially viable process to form a calcium alginate matrix particle in the size range of 10 – 20 μm; however, one would have to find a way of cross-linking the sodium alginate solution during atomization. Researchers at the University of California Davis have developed a method that accomplishes this by spray-drying an aqueous formulation that contains sodium alginate, a calcium salt that is only soluble at reduced pH and an organic acid that has been neutralized to a pH just above the pKa with a volatile base. Under these conditions, the calcium salt is insoluble and calcium ions are not available for cross-linking. The solution in this fluid state is pumped through the nozzle of the spray dryer, where it is effectively atomized. Upon atomization, the volatile base is vaporized, which reduces the pH (hydrogen ions are released into solution) and in turn releases calcium ions from the calcium salt that cross-link the alginate. The incorporation of an additional polymer to the formulation allows for the control of hydration properties of the particles to control the release of the encapsulated compounds. This same process can be used for encapsulation using soy protein. (more...)

The rise in global energy usage, the disappearance of fossil fuel reserves, and the need for carbon-neutral fuels has highlighted the importance of developing technologies to harness new and renewable energy sources. Liquid fuels derived from plant biomass are being explored as potential gasoline and diesel substitutes. The major biofuel in use today is ethanol, which can be blended with gasoline for use in conventional engines. But ethanol has a low energy return compared with gasoline, high vaporizability, and is miscible with water. Alternative biofuels, such as n-butanol, have characteristics that are closer to gasoline and could perform better as a replacement. Although many microorganisms are capable of producing ethanol as a fermentation product, few are able to produce butanol. The microbes that do produce butanol are not as easily manipulated genetically nor offer as robust hosts for fermentation as E. coli or S. cerevisiae. Researchers at UC Berkeley have constructed a biosynthetic pathway for butanol with genes obtained from various host organisms and demonstrated its activity in E. coli. (more...)

Researchers at the University of California Davis have developed a novel method to produce haploid plants through seeds. This method induces genome elimination (from one parent in a cross) with a precise mutation, rather than by culturing haploid cells or by crossing distantly related plants. (more...)

UCSF scientists have developed a method to engineer a synthetic, feedback-regulated MAPK signaling pathway using scaffold-mediated feedback loops. This method can be used to systematically re-program MAPK signaling responses, allowing one to engineer and modify the MAPK signaling pathway to optimally control dynamic and complex behaviors in living cells. Many potential applications exist, including engineering of metabolic processes for optimal biofuel production. (more...)

A chemical approach to the total conversion of plant carbohydrates to biofuels and value-added products. (more...)

There is great variability among different organisms in their ability to naturally or artificially synthesize and accumulate lipids, hydrocarbons, and polymers. Consequently, many organisms must be screened in order to achieve the desired maximal bio-product accumulation. After an ideal organism is selected, its product content can vary with lifecycle stage, cultivation conditions, cellular stress and/or time. This variability must be understood and controlled during R&D, process development and manufacturing scale-up in order to maximize product yields. The above process of screening and development can be time-consuming and consequently costly.  To address this situation, scientists at UC Berkeley have developed a method for quick and precise estimation of lipid, hydrocarbon or biopolymer content in live cells -- whether grown as single cells or in colonies. This method can be used for screening a variety of microorganisms for product accumulation (microorganism prospecting), and to check yields throughout the production process -- allowing for more rapid improvement of production methods and shortened R&D timelines. (more...)