University Research Heats up as Algae Applications Grow

October 4, 2012
AlgaeIndustryMagazine.com

s the algae industry begins to commercialize a wide variety of product types, universities worldwide are joining in the search for improved strains, higher performance processes and breakthroughs in basic understanding of how to domesticate one of the world’s earliest building blocks. Following are a few of the institutions of high learning now putting increased attention to not only biofuel development, but into other applications meant to solve critical problems in our future. Go to www.algaeindustrymagazine.com.

NSF Gives $2mil to OSU for Diatom Study

The National Science Foundation has awarded a four-year, $2 million grant to Engineers at Oregon State University, in Corvallis, OR, to study if diatoms can make biofuel production from algae truly cost-effective by simultaneously producing other valuable products such as semiconductors, biomedical products and even… —more

Berkeley Labs Finds New Way to Penetrate Algae Cells

From the U.S. Department of Energy’s Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (Berkeley Lab) comes news that scientists from there and Stanford University have developed a way to send molecules and proteins across the cell wall of algae, opening the door for a new way to study and manipulate these… —more

Texas AgriLife Feeding Algae to Steers

A Texas AgriLife Research scientist, Dr. Tryon Wickersham, and graduate student, Merritt Drewery, have been conducting feeding trials of algae leftover products (after oil extraction, in powdered form) on Angus steers. Two of the three phases of the trials are currently complete and the third phase is slated for… —more

UCSD Chemists Develop Protein Reverse Tagging Method

Chemists at UC San Diego have developed a method that for the first time provides scientists the ability to attach chemical probes onto proteins and subsequently remove them in a repeatable cycle. Their achievement, detailed in a paper that appears online this week in the journal Nature Methods, will allow researchers to better… —more

ASU to Lead National Algae Testbed

The U.S. Department of Energy has selected the Arizona State University led Algae Testbed Public-Private Partnership (ATP³) for a $15M award for its Advancements in Sustainable Algal Production opportunity. “This algae national testbed will provide high quality data and a network of sites that will speed the pace of… —more