Breakout Session IV
Plants and Microbes for Bioenergy
Martin Keller
Martin Keller is the Division Director of the Oak Ridge National Laboratory. ORNL has been selected by the Department of Energy to develop one of three U.S. Bioenergy Research Centers. The Centers are intended to accelerate basic research in the development of cellulosic ethanol and other biofuels.
To bring the latest tools of the biotechnology revolution to bear to advance clean energy production, the Centers will be supported by multidisciplinary teams of top scientists. A major focus will be on understanding how to reengineer biological processes to develop new, more efficient methods for converting the cellulose in plant material into ethanol or other biofuels that serve as a substitute for gasoline. This research is critical because future biofuels production will require the use of feedstocks more diverse than corn, including cellulosic material like agricultural residues, grasses, poplar trees, inedible plants, and non-edible portions of crops.
The Centers will bring together diverse teams of researchers from 18 of the nation’s leading universities, seven DOE national laboratories, at least one nonprofit organization, and a range of private companies. All three Centers are located in geographically distinct areas and will use different plants both for laboratory research and for improving feedstock crops.
The mission of the Bioenergy Research Centers will lie at the frontier between basic and applied science, and will maintain a focus on bioenergy applications. These Centers aim to identify real steps toward practical solutions regarding to the challenge of producing renewable, carbon-neutral energy. At the same time, the Centers will be grounded in basic research, pursuing alternative avenues and a range of high-risk, high-return approaches to finding solutions. To some degree, one key to the Centers’ success will be their ability to develop the more basic dimensions of their research to a point that can easily transition to applied research.
Patrick Schnable
Patrick Schnable is a professor in the departments of Agronomy and Genetics, Development & Cell Biology at Iowa State University. He also serves as the Associate Director of ISU's Plant Sciences Institute and as the founding director of ISU's Center for Plant Genomics where he manages a research program that emphasizes interdisciplinary approaches to understanding plant biology. His own expertise is in the areas of genetics, molecular biology and genomics, but he collaborates with researchers in diverse fields, including biochemistry, plant breeding, plant physiology, bioinformatics, computer science and engineering. His wide-ranging research interests include heterosis, meiotic recombination, cytoplasmic male sterility and the development of new genomic technologies and bioinformatics approaches to understanding the maize genome.