Neil BRUCE

CNAP, Director
Centre for Novel Agricultural Products (CNAP) Department of Biology, University of York, UK

Mining marine and terrestrial environments for new enzymes to overcome obstacles in lignocellulose valorisation

Host: S. Yazdani

TThe long-term success of biorefining is dependent on the development of effective low-cost enzyme cocktails for processing plant biomass to exploit the energy rich polysaccharides and the aryl-aromatic polymer lignin in plant cell walls for fermentation and conversion into commodity chemicals, respectively. One of the major challenges in identifying new enzymes involved in lignocellulose digestion in the natural environment for use as biocatalysts lies in the complexity of the process itself.

We have focused our efforts on discovering new lignocellulose degrading enzymes and associated proteins using a multi ‘omics approach, combining the power of proteomics and transcriptomics, to identify proteins critical for lignocellulose deconstruction from marine and terrestrial organisms. This approach is allowing us to identify novel enzymes, both broadening our fundamental understanding of this process, as well as providing new activities for the generation of renewable fuels from biomass-derived sugars but also for the production of chemicals from lignin.

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