Breakout Session III
Cell Wall Deconstruction
Mike Himmel
During his 23-year term at the National Renewable Energy Laboratory (formerly the Solar Energy Research Institute) in Golden, Colorado, Mike Himmel has worked to support many technical aspects of the Department of Energy's Biomass Program.
More recently, he has been responsible for establishing the facilities and staff necessary to pursue projects in protein engineering and, specifically, cellulases. Today, Himmel manages the award-winning cellulases Enzyme Technology Team as well as one major industrial and several academic subcontracts that support this work. They have assembled world-class protein purification and characterization facilities at NREL, with special emphasis this past year on robotics systems for screening libraries derived from directed evolution technology. Himmel has contributed 300 peer-reviewed papers and meeting abstracts, four books, and 16 patents to the literature. He also chaired or co-chaired 15 international meetings in the field of biochemistry and biotechnology. Mike chaired the 2003 Gordon Research Conference on "Cellulases and Cellulosomes."
Edward A. Bayer
Edward A. Bayer is an associate professor in the Department of Biological Chemistry at the Weizmann Institute of Science, Rehovot, Israel. Edward A. Bayer and his colleagues are studying the structure, architecture and biotechnological applications of the multi-enzyme cellulosome complex, its interactions with cellulose and other plant cell-wall polysaccharides, and the utilization of recombinant designer cellulosomes for enhanced decomposition of cellulosic substrates in the conversion of biomass to bioenergy.
Since the early 1970s, he has been involved in the development of the avidin-biotin system as a general tool in the biological sciences. He was a co-discoverer of the cellulosome concept in the early 1980s. In 1999, he was organizer and Co-chair of the first Gordon Research Conference on "Cellulases and Cellulosomes", and he served as Chairman of the same conference in 2001. During his career, he has authored over 230 articles and reviews in both fields and is editor of the review journal Biotechnology Advances. Professor Bayer was elected as a Fellow of the American Academy of Microbiology and received the Sarstedt Prize for application of the avidin-biotin system in clinical medicine.