Lignin is a key obstacle to extracting sugars from biomass. Researchers have redesigned lignin to include weak bonds, or “zips,” which make it much easier to break apart. Credit: Shawn Mansfield, UBC

Great Lakes Bioenergy

Great Lakes Bioenergy is a U.S. Department of Energy-funded research center dedicated to developing sustainable biofuels and bioproducts.

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Who We Are

The Great Lakes Bioenergy Research Center (GLBRC) is a U.S. Department of Energy-funded Bioenergy Research Center led by the University of Wisconsin–Madison. With Michigan State University and other partners, we are developing sustainable biofuels and bioproducts made from dedicated energy crops grown on marginal lands. Our mission is simple: creating biofuels and bioproducts that are economically viable and environmentally sustainable.

Research Themes

Sustainable cropping systems

Engineering bioenergy crops to enhance their environmental and economic value

Generating multiple products from plant biomass

Understanding and optimizing the field-to-product pipeline

GLBRC investigator Holly Gibbs elected to AAAS

Three people converse outdoors at a tropical agricultural site, with rows of oil palm seedlings in a nursery and mature oil palm trees visible in the background.

GLBRC investigator Holly Gibbs is among five University of Wisconsin–Madison faculty members elected to the American Academy of Arts & Sciences. As a geographer, she studies how and why people use land around the world and what these changes mean for the future of our planet.

Lighter Fare for Cattle and Microbes

A researcher holding pruning shears examines mature sorghum plants in a greenhouse, photographed from a low angle among the stalks with glass panels visible overhead.

Rebecca Smith uses genetic tools to develop plants that can be digested more easily. The outcomes could be greater efficiency for biofuel production and lower methane emissions from dairy cows.