6 Scientists on the Cutting Edge of Energy and Environmental Research

Phil Hugenholtz and Falk Warnecke: From Termites to Biofuels

The concept is appealingly simple: Termites have specialized enzymes in their guts that digest wood and grass. Advanced biofuels, made from wood and grass, require enzymes to break down the starting material. At the moment, such enzymes are costly and, despite improvements, somewhat inefficient. Natural enzymes—termite enzymes—may offer a path to more efficient biofuels. In 2007, Phil Hugenholtz and Falk Warnecke of the Energy Department’s Joint Genome Institute in Walnut Creek, Calif., took a step in that direction with a paper in the journal Nature identifying more than 500 genes in termite guts associated with enzymes that break down wood’s main structural component, cellulose. More>