Friday, June 13, 2008

Harvard’s Church to help SunEthanol make better biofuels

By Mass High Tech Staff

University of Massachusetts Amherst spin out SunEthanol Inc., the developer of a specialized microbe used to convert cellulose to ethanol, has entered into a research collaboration agreement with Harvard University’s Office of Technology Development.

Under the partnership, Harvard Medical School researchers will work to develop new genetic strains of SunEthanol’s proprietary “Q Microbe,” a natural bacterium discovered by SunEthanol founder and chief scientist Susan Leschine. The new strains will be aimed at delivering higher yields of ethanol from non-food based feed stock, such as switchgrass, corn stover, wheat straw, sugar cane bagasse and wood pulp.

The research will take place in the laboratory of George Church, a professor of Genetics at Harvard Medical School and director of the Center for Computational Genetics. SunEthanol will have an option to license any of the strains created under the partnership, according to the company.

SunEthanol was founded last year and has landed an undisclosed amount of funding from Waltham’s Battery Ventures, Hadley’s Long River Ventures and South Dakota’s VeraSun Energy. The company was also chosen by the U.S. Department of Energy to participate in the agency’s $114 million project to build  four small-scale biorefineries across the country, announced in February.