title: Harnessing energy from plant biomass.
abstract: Biofuels derived from renewable plant biomass offer a potential carbon-neutral replacement for current liquid transportation fuels. Progress toward this initiative requires development of new methods to engineer energy crops with the desired chemical composition and physical characteristics, depolymerize lignocellulose to fermentable units, and program microbial metabolism for efficient conversion of sugars to ethanol.
authors.affiliation: Department of Chemistry and California Institute for Quantitative Biosciences, University of California, Berkeley, CA 94720, USA. mcchang@berkeley.edu
authors.forename: Michelle C  Y
authors.initials: MC
authors.lastname: Chang
mesh_terms: D018533:Biomass; D001709:Biotechnology / Q000379:methods*; D002240:Carbohydrate Sequence; D002482:Cellulose / Q000378:metabolism; D004736:Energy-Generating Resources; D008031:Lignin / Q000378:metabolism; D008969:Molecular Sequence Data; D010944:Plants / Q000378:metabolism*
chemical_list: C036909:lignocellulose; D002482:Cellulose; D008031:Lignin