Working on a current scientific issue with cutting-edge technology is unusual for an undergraduate. But not for the Wisconsin iGEM team, a group of 11 University of Wisconsin-Madison undergraduates researching biofuels for a synthetic biology competition.

The students are doing research beyond their years, says Basudeb Bhattacharyya, a graduate student advising the team.

“They are working on graduate-level projects,” says Bhattacharyya. “Most undergraduates only get to assist graduate students or postdocs with their research.”

The International Genetically Engineered Machines competition, or iGEM, aims to make synthetic biology a reality. This year’s competition will feature 84 international teams that are working on projects that uniquely combine engineering and biology.

With the opportunity to direct their own research projects, the team chose to spend the summer on two biofuels projects.

Andy Braasch, a senior molecular biology major, explained that current ethanol processing methods are unsustainable. The next step in ethanol is to make biofuels from cellulose, a hard to break down carbohydrate that gives plants their structure. Braasch and four iGEM team members are working to break down lignin, a compound that coats cellulose, into simpler compounds that can be used to produce biofuels.

The remaining six team members, including senior biochemistry major Charlie Burns, are using bacteria to produce sorbitol, a sugar compound that could potentially be used to make biofuels. The team is working to manipulate E. coli to produce the compound with more energy efficiency.

“We’re doing this research to get a head start, to say it is possible,” says Burns, adding that he has gained a great deal of insight into the research process.

“In theory, it’s simple,” says Burns. “But it never works that way. You have to do trial after trial, and then magically it will work.”

The iGEM competition helps students understand the realities of the scientific process, and also the advantages of working with students of different majors.

“The biologists and engineers offer different perspectives on how to approach a problem,” says team member Mattias Gyllborg, a senior medical microbiology and immunology major. “You usually don’t get that in an undergraduate lab.”

The Wisconsin iGEM team will compete at the iGEM jamboree at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in November. For more information about the team or iGEM, contact Doug Weibel at weibel@biochem.wisc.edu.

Members of the 2008 Wisconsin iGEM team include: Andy Braasch, senior, molecular biology, Cincinnati, Ohio; Charlie Burns, senior, biochemistry, Crystal Lake, Ill.; Ben Cox, senior, mechanical engineering and biochemistry, Oregon, Wis.; Mattias Gyllborg, senior, medical microbiology and immunology, Jonkoping, Sweden; Jack Ho, senior, biomedical engineering, Marathon, Wis.; Yash Jhala, sophomore, genetics and economics, Naperville, Ill; Jia Luo, senior, biochemistry and economics, Madison; Sean McMaster, junior, biochemistry and math, Kenosha; Tanner Peelen, junior, biochemistry and economics, Stevens Point; Peter Vander Velden, freshman, undecided, Madison; Joseph Yuen, senior, biomedical engineering and economics, Hong Kong, China.

Faculty advisors include Aseem Ansari, biochemistry; Franco Cerrina, electrical and computer engineering; Brian Pfleger, chemical and biological engineering; Jennie Reed, chemical and biological engineering; Michael Sussman, biochemistry; and Doug Weibel, biochemistry.

Sponsors are the Great Lakes Bioenergy Research Center, Materials Research Science and Engineering Centers (MRSEC), Nanoscale Science and Engineering Center (NSEC), the Office of the Chancellor, Promega Corporation, Lucigen Corporation and Clontech.

We Conserve — the campuswide program aimed at slashing energy consumption by 20 percent by 2010 and building an environmental ethic — will celebrate its achievements in a series of events beginning with a concert on Friday, Sept. 26.

The concert, from 7:30 p.m. until midnight at the Memorial Union Terrace, will feature four bands and emphasize the environmental accomplishments of the program.

“Working together since April 2006, we have identified campus energy savings totaling about $4.6 million, and we’re on our way to meet and exceed our conservation goals,” says Faramarz Vakili, associate director of physical plant and leader of the effort.

The savings result from a variety of improvements and changes being implemented as part of the initiative, as well as individual energy-savings habits being promoted as part of We Conserve.

Read the full release here.

EAST LANSING, Mich. — Scientists at Michigan State University have identified a new protein necessary for chloroplast development. The discovery could ultimately lead to plant varieties tailored specifically for biofuel production.

Chloroplasts, which are specialized compartments in plant cells, convert sunlight, carbon dioxide and water into sugars and oxygen (”fuel” for the plant) during photosynthesis. The newly discovered protein, trigalactosyldiacylglycerol 4, or TGD4, offers insight into how the process works.

“Nobody knew how this mechanism worked before we described this protein,” said Christoph Benning, MSU professor of biochemistry and molecular biology. “This protein directly affects photosynthesis and how plants create biomass (stems, leaves and stalks) and oils.”

Read the full release here.

This is the first new federal environmental education funding program authorized in 18 years. Endorsed by over 220 colleges and universities, higher education associations, NGOs and corporations, this grant program will provide the catalyst for colleges and universities to develop and implement more programs and practices around the principles of sustainability. The bill also directs the Department of Education to convene a national summit of higher education sustainability experts, federal agency staff, and business leaders to identify best practices and opportunities for collaboration in sustainability. (more…)

Milwaukee–Gov. Jim Doyle will be the first recipient of a prestigious award given by the nation’s largest group of ecologists at the 93rd Annual Meeting of the Ecological Society of America on August 3. The award recognizes a regional or local policymaker who has an outstanding record of informing their political decision-making with ecological science.

“We are pleased to honor a public figure that has a sharp appreciation for local and global ecological issues and works to use sound ecological science to inform decisions at the state level and beyond,” said ESA President Norm Christensen. (more…)

Plant biologists, geneticists, biochemists, bacteriologists, chemical engineers and computer scientists collide in the world of bioenergy, where the search for viable solutions demands intelligence of all kinds. The Great Lakes Bioenergy Research Center (GLBRC) at the University of Wisconsin-Madison has harnessed the intellectual heft to take on this challenge, and they have hired a translator to connect researchers who would normally live in entirely separate research worlds.

That translator — and the new scientific programs manager for the GLBRC — is Steve Slater, a plant and bacterial geneticist.

“I may spend the morning talking to a computer scientist and the afternoon talking to a biochemist,” Slater says. “I know enough to speak the language of all these groups, figure out their needs and make sure we can secure the resources to meet these needs.”

(more…)

Most scientists can’t help but daydream about their research projects, which is why you’ll often find John Ralph doodling on restaurant napkins. The University of Wisconsin-Madison professor of biochemistry often interrupts his meals with a quick sketch, usually depicting some piece of the structure of lignin, the subject of his research for the past 36 years.

But amid deepening concern over the world’s dependency on oil, Ralph’s napkin art might turn out to be as valuable as a rare Rembrandt. Lignin — a tough, glue-like substance that keeps plant cell walls from falling apart — presently stands as one of the chief barriers to making fuel from grasses and woody plants, which most experts see as a preferable alternative to ethanol made from corn kernels or other food sources. And few people in the world know more about lignin than Ralph, who until earlier this year was a scientist with the U.S. Dairy Forage Research Center at UW-Madison. During the past year, the affable New Zealander has been the subject of an intense bidding war among the three bioenergy research centers created last year by the U.S. Department of Energy, including UW-Madison’s Great Lakes Bioenergy Research Center (GLBRC). Ralph recently accepted an offer to join the GLBRC team, which means he’ll now work full-time on achieving the holy grail of plant-based fuel.

Read the rest of the article here.

ANN ARBOR, Mich. — The University Research Corridor presidents Monday described their vision for stimulating technology transfer, business development and increased partnerships by announcing several new initiatives to help invigorate Michigan’s economy.

Speaking at a URC conference that drew leaders from across the nation, University of Michigan President Mary Sue Coleman, Wayne State University President Irvin D. Reid and Michigan State University President Lou Anna K. Simon outlined their latest efforts to spur Michigan’s growing knowledge-based economy. Read the rest here