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Bioenergy program receives $125 million renewal grant

April 8, 2013

Students and faculty conducting research in the Great Lakes Bioenergy Research Center, or GLBRC will be able to continue research after receiving a $125 million renewal grant for the next five years from the U.S. Department of Energy.

Since the program started in 2007, Ken Keegstra has seen the research in bioenergy grow tremendously.

“I think it’s a great opportunity for students,” said Keegstra, scientific director for GLBRC at MSU and professor in the Department of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology and the Department of Plant Biology. “It’s a great opportunity for training students both at the undergraduate and graduate level.”

GLBRC is led by the University of Wisconsin-Madison and MSU to conduct research on biofuels, which converts plant biomass to liquid transportation fuels.

“The major goal is to create biofuel liquid transportation fuels from plant biomass in a way that does not compete with … animal feed,” Keegstra said.

The center funds about 35 MSU faculty and about 40 MSU students from a variety of majors, including plant biology and chemical engineering.

Keegstra said the center is evaluated annually, and the grant money was renewed because the center has been performing well.

Jonathan Walton, director of the GLBRC at MSU and professor in the Department of Plant Biology, is also conducting research through the center on enzymes. He is trying to develop methods to take apart sugars in the non-edible parts of plants and convert it into ethanol, an alternative fuel.

“We are successful at the lab scale, (but) the challenge is to convert it into an economically (sensible solution),” Walton said.

Graduate student Crystal Li is working on a project with Walton and has been helping with research at the center since fall 2012. Li said the center is efficient because it allows people from different departments at MSU and other universities to work together.

Li said she hopes to work in the bioenergy field, and her research with GLBRC might help her find a job.

“I think it’s very useful for the future,” Li said. “That’s why I want to take part in this program.”

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