Research & Commercialization News
DOE to Establish Energy Frontier Research Center at the Donald Danforth Plant Science Center, UMSL to Collaborate
The Donald Danforth Plant Science Center will be home to one of 46 new multi-million-dollar Energy Frontier Research Centers (EFRCs) announced April 27 by the White House in conjunction with a speech delivered by President Barack Obama at the annual meeting of the National Academy of Sciences. The EFRCs, which will pursue advanced scientific research on energy, are being established by the U.S. Department of Energy Office of Science at universities, national laboratories, nonprofit organizations, and private firms across the nation.
“As global energy demand grows over this century, there is an urgent need to reduce our dependence on fossil fuels and imported oil and curtail greenhouse gas emissions,” said Secretary of Energy Steven Chu. “Meeting this challenge will require significant scientific advances. These Centers will mobilize the enormous talents and skills of our nation’s scientific workforce in pursuit of the breakthroughs that are essential to make alternative and renewable energy truly viable as large-scale replacements for fossil fuels.”
The 46 EFRCs, to be funded at $2-5 million per year each for a planned initial five-year period, were selected from a pool of some 260 applications received in response to a solicitation issued by the U.S. Department of Energy Office of Science in 2008. Selection was based on a rigorous merit review process utilizing outside panels composed of scientific experts.
Thirty EFRCs are being funded at a total annual cost of $100 million under the Fiscal Year (FY) 2009 Federal Budget. The Recovery Act provided a further $277 million, enabling the Office of Science to establish an additional 16 EFRCs and forward-fund them for the full five-year period.
EFRC researchers will take advantage of new capabilities in nanotechnology, high-intensity light sources, neutron scattering sources, supercomputing, and other advanced instrumentation, much of it developed with DOE Office of Science support over the past decade, in an effort to lay the scientific groundwork for fundamental advances in solar energy, biofuels, transportation, energy efficiency, electricity storage and transmission, clean coal and carbon capture and sequestration, and nuclear energy.
The Center for Advanced Biofuels Systems (CABS) will be directed by Richard Sayre at the Donald Danforth Plant Science Center and will collaborate with scientists at the University of Missouri-St. Louis, University of Nebraska, University of Arizona and Michigan State University. The Center is being funded at $3 million per year for each of five years for a total of $15 million.
The objective of CABS is to generate the fundamental knowledge required to increase the efficiency of photosynthesis and production of energy-rich molecules in plants. CABS will focus its efforts on the model algae Chlamydomonas and the oilseed plant Camellina. Metabolic networks will be modified to increase lipid and thus “bio-oil” synthesis, and new metabolic pathways will be designed for production of hydrocarbons from sunlight. Utilizing the skills of plant biochemists, biophysicists, and computational biologists, this innovative center will integrate all aspects of metabolism, from the early events in photosynthesis to the synthesis and accumulation of oils and biofuel precursors. This EFRC may lead to a transformational channeling of solar energy through carbon metabolism and, ultimately, into biofuels.
"To achieve these objectives, the Center has assembled an integrated team of world-class experts in photosynthesis, lipid synthesis and modification, metabolic engineering and modeling, artificial metabolon development, noninvasive metabolic flux analysis, functional genomics, and small molecular weight hydrocarbon production from the Danforth Center, UMSL, and other collaborators," said Dr. Xuemin "Sam" Wang, E. Desmond Lee and Family Fund Professor, UM-St. Louis, and Principal Investigator, Danforth Center. Wang's role in the Center will be to investigate the regulatory processes by which plants integrate nutrient and stress cues for optimal growth. He will also study the transcriptional and translational controls that can be altered in order to increase oil accumulation.
CABS is one of only two EFRCs being established in Missouri.
Of the 46 EFRCs selected, 31 are led by universities, 12 by DOE National Laboratories, two by nonprofit organizations and one by a corporate research laboratory. The criterion for providing an EFRC with Recovery Act funding was job creation. The EFRCs chosen for funding under the Recovery Act provide the most employment for postdoctoral associates, graduate students, undergraduates, and technical staff, in keeping with the Recovery Act’s objective to preserve and create jobs and promote economic recovery.