Beyond corn: Ethanol's next generation (Chicago Trib)

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http://www.chicagotribune.com/business/chi-0610130128oct13,0,7209827.story?coll=chi-business-hed

Scientists seek cheap, plentiful energy alternatives

By Michael Oneal
Tribune staff reporter
Published October 13, 2006

WEST LAFAYETTE, Ind. -- Sitting in a cluttered, windowless office here surrounded by pictures of her three grandchildren, Nancy W.Y. Ho did her best on a recent afternoon to show why everything you thought you knew about ethanol is wrong.

It's not just about distilling auto fuel from corn, explained the 71-year-old molecular biologist from China. It's about weaning America from its self-destructive oil habit by tapping the energy in everything else that grows--and rots--all around us.

Ho has spent the better part of a career at Purdue University figuring out how to rejigger the DNA of a simple form of brewer's yeast by cloning a gene nobody else had thought to clone.

Now, if you stir her creation into a beaker filled with the sugars derived from throwaway organic materials like wheat straw, switch grass, orange peels, even municipal garbage, it will gradually convert most of them into high-octane auto fuel.

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[eppur_se_muova]

1. Pretty good little paper they have there in Chitown. K&R. nt

[phantom power]

2. So, she engineered a yeast that can break down cellulose...

And then metabolize the resulting sugars into alcohol? That's a neat trick.