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Leafy green trees are symbols of growth and prosperity. Their leaves bring valuable shade, and as they change color people make extra effort to see the show. Once they drop, it’s easy to assume that the plants are “asleep” until springtime arrives.

The Center for Bioenergy Innovation at Oak Ridge National Laboratory offers a unique opportunity for early career scientists to conduct groundbreaking research while learning what it takes to manage a large collaborative science center. Eight talented scientists from CBI’s partnering institutions have participated in the Early Career Development program, benefitting their career, their science and the […]

Biologist Larry York’s fascination with plant roots has spurred his research across four continents and inspired him to create accessible tools that enable others to explore the underground world.

CBI research is accelerating the process of engineering microbes to produce bioproducts. Microbes can produce a large array of compounds from biomass sources, like grasses, woody plants  and crop wastes, by using their own enzymes to trigger chemical changes. However, bioengineering a microbe to create each new product can take many years and a significant […]

For Oak Ridge National Laboratory environmental scientist and lover of the outdoors John Field, work in ecosystem modeling is a profession with tangible impacts.

Researchers collaborating through the Center for Bioenergy Innovation recently developed a way to make the sugars in plant cells more accessible for producing second-generation biofuels. The results are published in Carbohydrate Polymers. The outer walls of plant cells are constructed from polysaccharides, molecules made of bonded sugars. These molecules determine the physical properties of plants […]

Researchers engineered microbes to better convert inexpensive, woody plants into lactic acid. Researchers working with the Center for Bioenergy Innovation have engineered a microbe to better produce lactic acid, which is valuable both economically and environmentally. A bacterium that was improved using laboratory-assisted evolution could eventually help supply the rapidly expanding lactic acid market. Beyond […]

Because next-generation biofuels will depend on the growth and hardiness of woody feedstocks, scientists have sought to better understand how leaf cells quickly respond to environmental cues such as light, temperature and water. These rapid responses take the form of “post-translational modifications” that occur when a plant cell chemically modifies a protein to alter its […]