Date: October 14, 2013
Time: 4:30 pm -
Location: Computer Science 104
Markus Pauly Presentation Slides
Professor Markus Pauly, of the University of California, Berkeley, presents “Plant Biotechnology for Biofuels” as part of the Andlinger Center’s 2013-2014 Highlight Seminar Series.
ABSTRACT
All cells of higher plants are encased in a mainly carbohydrate based cell wall also referred to as lignocellulosics. Lignocellulosics represent thedominant carbon sequestration system on land as their production amount in just 2 days equals the entire annual production of all chemicals combined made by humans. However, lignocellulosics are not merely a carbon storage sink for plants, but they represent sophisticated, highly complex materials that plants produce to benefit their sessile life-styles allowing their survival for up to several millennia as is the case in some tree species. Lignocellulosics, the by far dominant component of plant biomass, consists of a complex aggregate of microcrystalline cellulose microfibrils, crosslinking water-soluble hemicelluloses, and a water repellent polyphenol, lignin. In order to utilize this renewable resource for biofuels or other commodity chemicals it is desirable to understand how the plant synthesizes these polymers. Such knowledge may also one day lead to tailoring the polymer structures for numerous applications in varying industries. Various strategies have been employed in our lab to identify the genes involved in the synthesis of this polymer including massive parallel pyrosequencing of relevant plants and tissues, forward genetic screens for plants with altered wall polymer structures, and reverse genetic approaches of analyzing insertional knock-out lines. The results demonstrate that plants could be identified/generated that harbor advantageous attributes for biorefineries. The ultimate goal of this research is to one day understand the complete biosynthetic pathway of a wall polymer utilizing a synthetic biology approach.
BIOGRAPHY
Markus Pauly received his PhD (1998) in Biology from the Technical University Aachen, Germany. He continued his career on the structure and function of plant cell wall polysaccharides to eventually establish his own research group at the Max-Planck Institute for molecular plant physiology in Germany. He joined the faculty of UC Berkeley in 2010 in the Department of Plant and Microbial Biology. He is presently a program manager at the Energy Biosciences Institute on campus aiming at improving plant feedstocks for the conversion to biofuels and holds the Fred Dickinson Chair of Wood Science and Technology.