Alteration of plant cell wall structure for improvement ofbiomass hydrolysis

Biobased products, mostly derived from plant biomass, have the potential to improve the sustainability of Canada’s natural resources and environmental quality while competing economically. Plant biomass, composed primarily of cell walls and modification of cell wall properties has the potential to improve biomass conversion to biobased products such as biofuels. Progress towards achieving this goal is currently impeded by a lack of knowledge of how cell walls are assembled and how their structure affects the processing of biomass. The scope of the proposed research is to identify new varieties of crops (rice, wheat, corn and switchgrass) having improved plant biomass properties. These will be identified using a multipronged approach that utilizes state of the art plant molecular biology techniques and a novel screening method.

Faculty Supervisor:

Dario Bonetta;Marcus Samuel

Student:

Partner:

Frontier Agri-Science Inc

Discipline:

Life Sciences

Sector:

Agriculture

University:

University of Calgary; University of Ontario Institute of Technology

Program: