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Triptych showing green leaves, a Petri dish, and two glass vials of yellow and amber liquid

Bioenergy Research Centers mark discovery milestone

With a focus on hydrocarbon fuels and chemicals made from non-food plants, the Bioenergy Research Centers are developing a portfolio of plant-based products, methods, and tools for use in an emerging U.S. bioeconomy.

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| Jill Sakai

Grasslands are a vital but shrinking ecosystem in the U.S., and conversion to cropland is a leading driver of this change.

| Jill Sakai

Adrianna Trusiak has been on the job for three months but still hasn’t seen her office. She started her role as a Great Lakes Bioenergy Research Center research coordinator at the beginning of April, just a few weeks after the Center’s in-person operations ceased due to the COVID-19 pandemic.

| Jill Sakai

One of the slowest and most expensive steps in turning biomass into chemicals and other useful products is separating the compounds of interest from the mixture of liquid solvents and other byproducts made during processing.

| Kim Geiger

High yields. A deep root system that prevents soil erosion and allows for minimal irrigation. The ability to pull large amounts of carbon out of the air and sequester it in the soil. Beneficial effects on wildlife, pollination, and water quality. Perennial grasses, such as switchgrass and elephant grass, are wonderful in many ways and especially promising biofuel feedstocks.

| Laura Schultz

Gracielou Klinger likes to describe the chemicals she uses in her research at Michigan State University (MSU) as “smelly.” Klinger, a biochemistry graduate student in the Great Lakes Bioenergy Research Center (GLBRC), studies how smelly chemicals such as sulfur can be used to break apart lignin and turn it into valuable products like biofuels.

| Natasha Kassulke

The awardees span the four divisions — arts and humanities, physical sciences, social sciences, and biological sciences — on campus.

| Jill Sakai
In a review published online April 17 in Trends in Genetics, “Opening the Black Box: Interpretable Machine Learning for Geneticists,” Shin-Han Shiu and his colleagues describe the power of machine learning tools for analyzing complex data and how these models can be applied to research questions in genetics and genomics.
| Jill Sakai
A study published April 6 in ChemSusChem, is featured on the journal's cover. The paper brings together a diverse team with expertise in many different fields to address a complex problem: how to make a biorefinery biologically and economically sustainable.
| Jill Sakai

Researchers at the Great Lakes Bioenergy Research Center (GLBRC) at the University of Wisconsin–Madison have developed a method to create hybrid yeasts that combine traits from up to six different species. The approach allows scientists to harness advantageous traits from many species in a single strain tailored for a specific use, such as producing biofuels.

| Caroline Brooks

In a study published in Nature Sustainability, an ecosystem scientist and an agricultural economist outline how to develop a more sustainable land management system through data collection and stakeholder buy-in.

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