Routes to Cellulosic Ethanol

Marcos S. Buckeridge, is a biologist who worked for more than 20 years with the structure and function of plant cell walls. After many years at the Botanical Garden of São Paulo, he moved to the University of São Paulo where incorporated in his lines of research investigation of sugarcane cell walls and sugarcane physiology. At the same time he founded the Laboratory or Plant Physiological Ecology (LAFIECO) dedicated exclusively to study the effects of the global climate changes on crop and native rain forest species. He will be one of the lead authors of the IPCC report for 2014. Buckeridge helped to found the BioEn-FAPESP, one or the most important research programs in bioenergy in Brazil. More recently he became coordinator of the National Institute of Science and Technology of Bioethanol, and is now the scientific director of the Brazilian Bioethanol Science and Technology National Laboratory (CTBE) at Campinas, Brazil. He is communicating editor for the journals Trees: structure and function, Global Change Biology Bioenergy and Bioenergy Research.Gustavo H. Goldman is a biologist, Professor of Molecular Biology at the Universidade de Sao Paulo, Brazil, Researcher of the Conselho Nacional de Desenvolvimento Cientifico e Tecnologico, Brazil, and a former fellow of the John Simon Guggenheim Foundation, USA. He is also an Associate Researcher at the Brazilian Bioethanol Science and Technology National Laboratory (CTBE) at Campinas, Brazil, and Visiting Professor at the Universidade do Minho, Portugal. His expertise is on the molecular genetics of fungi mainly working on the molecular biology of Aspergilli. Goldman has been working with fungal genomics for many years and has several collaborations with the JCVI and the Brod Institute-MIT, both at USA. He is currently Associate Editor of PLoS One, Fungal Genetics and Biology, and BMC Genomics.

• Bioenergy.- The role of biomass in the world’s energy system.- BioEnergy and the Sustainable Revolution.- Biomass gasification for ethanol production.- Plant cell walls, enzymes and metabolism.- Hemicelluloses as Recalcitrant Components for Saccharification in Wood.-Topochemistry, porosity and chemical composition affecting enzymatic hydrolysis of lignocellulosic materials.- Enzymology of plant cell wall breakdown: an update.- Enzymes in Bioenergy.- Hydrolases from microorganisms used for degradation of plant cell wall and bioenergy production.- Cellulase Engineering for Biomass Saccarification.- Genetic improvement of xylose utilization by Saccharomyces cerevisiae.- Plant cell wall genetics.- Tropical Maize – Exploiting maize genetic diversity to develop a novel annual crop for lignocellulosic biomass and sugar production.- Sugarcane breeding and selection of sugar cane with higher lignocellulosic ethanol production.- Cell Wall Genomics in the Recombinogenic Moss Physcomitrella patens.