The Institute of Massachusetts Biofuels Research and the Departments of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology, Biology, Chemical Engineering,
Microbiology, and Plant, Soil and Insect Sciences
The development of alternative, renewable fuel sources to reduce or replace our dependence on fossil fuels has emerged as a paramount challenge for maintaining the economic security of the country and the Commonwealth. An essential component of the quest for energy independence is to develop renewable, environmentally friendly sources of energy via the conversion of biomass (agricultural and forestry residues) to biofuels (e.g. ethanol and biodiesel). An interdisciplinary team of twenty-eight investigators at the University of Massachusetts Amherst has established The Institute for Massachusetts Biofuels Research (TIMBR) to develop cost-effective methods for producing ethanol, alternative fuels, and value-added materials from biomass (http://www.ecs.umass.edu/timbr/index.html). This proposal requests junior faculty positions in the Departments of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology (BMB), Biology, Chemical Engineering, Microbiology, and Plant, Soil and Insect Sciences to enhance research capacity in the area of biofuels research and development. Although each new position will be recruited through a specific department, we anticipate that the search committees will include faculty from other departments in the cluster. This will promote coordination between departmental and TIMBR hiring goals. These hires will build on our established excellence in biofuels research by targeting specific areas that complement existing expertise within the TIMBR participating departments.
Proven Excellence in the Area of Biofuels Research
TIMBR is the leader in biofuels R&D in the Commonwealth and we are positioned to be highly competitive for the next wave of energy-related funding opportunities at the state and federal levels. TIMBR faculty maintain a variety of high profile, externally funded research programs relevant to biofuels production. Research funding for TIMBR participants currently totals ~$4 million annually, including many collaborative grants; a NSF Major Research Instrumentation grant ($513,600) to provide the first shared biofuels equipment facility, housed in the College of Engineering (Huber, Conner, Henson, Leschine and Parkash); a Phase 1 Department of Energy (DOE) Small Business Technology Transfer Grant (STTR) ($100,000, Renewable Energy Corp., Huber and Stein), a Department of Energy Basic Energy Sciences grant ($450,000, Conner, Huber and Auerbach) a USDA - Cooperative State Research, Education, and Extension Service (CSREES) grant ($150,000, Blanchard, Damery, Catanzaro), a Phase I DOE Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) grant ($100,000, Qteros, Leschine, Blanchard, Henson), a Phase II DOE SBIR grant (Qteros, Leschine, Blanchard, Henson); a Phase I NSF SBIR grant (Qteros, Leschine, Blanchard); a Phase 1 National Institute of Environmental Health and Safety- NIEHS STTR grant ($100,000, Edenspace System Inc and Parkash (subaward to UMass $60,000)); a Massachusetts Department of Agricultural Resources and Massachusetts Technology Council grant ($55,000, Parkash, Herbert, and Prostak); a Consortium of Plant Biotechnology Research (CPBR) through DOE prime funding grant ($66,500, Parkash), and an Agricultural Innovation Center grant ($150,000, Herbert, Parkash and Randhir) TIMBR provides a highly collaborative environment for accelerated biofuels research and development by building on this established base of excellence and vision.
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In addition, TIMBR serves as an engine of growth for the renewable energy industry in the Commonwealth by working closely with industrial partners and government officials to respond to the rapidly changing needs of this nascent industry. TIMBR participants have extensive research interactions with private industry, including the establishment of Qteros and Anellotech, two biofuels startup companies resulting from TIMBR faculty research. These companies retain close relationships with UMass researchers via sponsored research agreements, and they are reliant on our expertise and research capacity to accelerate their research and development efforts. Other private sector collaborators outside the Commonwealth include Aspen Technology, British Petroleum, Conoco-Phillips, Edenspace System Corporation, Lummus Technology, Renewable Oil International and Weyerhauser.
We have previously demonstrated our ability to develop large-scale inter-institutional collaborations by our participation in the DOE Bioenergy Research Center VIBRANT Center proposal in which Harvard served as the lead institution. In addition to the private sector partnerships described above, TIMBR research currently includes collaborative projects with numerous academic and government groups. Collaborations with academic institutions within Massachusetts include Harvard (Church and Silver groups, systems biology), MIT (O’Connor group, metabolic engineering; Barton group, cellular and process optimization), WPI (Rao group, biomass production), UMass Boston (Keisler group, alternative energy technologies), and UMass Dartmouth (Howe group, biomass waste conversion). Government agency collaborations include the Massachusetts Department of Energy (Dwayne Breger), the Massachusetts Department of Conservation and Recreation (Gordon Boyce), and the Resources Joint Global Change Research Institute/ Pacific Northwest National Laboratory (Leon Clarke, Senior Research Economist). These interactions have tremendous potential for establishing a research consortium that is competitive for funding of both moderate- and large-scale proposals. TIMBR is uniquely qualified to catalyze the academic, industrial and government partnerships necessary to build a sustainable biofuels sector in the Commonwealth and the Northeast region.
Interdisciplinary/Transdisciplinary Nature of the Cluster
The TIMBR team is truly multi-disciplinary, with faculty drawn from three colleges (Engineering, Natural Sciences and Mathematics, and Natural Resources and the Environment) and ten different departments. TIMBR is vertically integrated to span the research thrust areas of biomass feedstock development, biological and chemical conversion to fuels, and process development by combining expertise in plant biology, microbiology, chemical catalysis, biorefinery engineering and design, and economic and environmental analysis. The four research thrust areas of TIMBR represent major efforts needed to develop a profitable and sustainable biofuels industry. TIMBR challenges traditional disciplinary silos by acknowledging that the thrust areas of biofuels research are interdependent and therefore must be viewed as an intellectual continuum rather than individual fields. For example, feedstock development needs to be pursued hand-in-hand with conversion technology. Our overarching goal is to develop research programs and train a workforce with an integrated view of the spectrum of issues that impact biofuels production.
In addition to our focus on interdisciplinary research, we work closely with graduate programs within the participating departments and three existing interdepartmental graduate programs (Plant Biology, Molecular and Cellular Biology and Organismic and Evolutionary Biology). TIMBR faculty also constitute a core component of the Institute of Cellular
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Engineering IGERT program and the Center for Building a Better Cell that was recently invited to submit a proposal to the NSF Science and Technology Center Program.
Willingness of Departments and Schools/Colleges to Support the Cluster
The departments and colleges participating in this cluster and the campus have a demonstrated commitment to the long term support of this cluster (see attached letters of support from department heads/chairs). Within the past five years, participating departments have made several critical hires that have substantially impacted the quality and capacity of biofuels research. In 2006, Chemical Engineering hired George Huber, a world expert in the chemical conversion of biomass to biofuels. In addition to obtaining research support in excess of $2M, Dr. Huber has established Annellotech, a successful renewable energy startup company. In 2008, Biology hired Samuel Hazen, a plant biologist with expertise in the optimization of biomass traits. Dr. Hazen already has support from the Department of Energy in excess of $1M. These highly successful faculty demonstrate the commitment of TIMBR participant departments to provide space and startup to support this critical area of renewable energy research. Investment in TIMBR also is demonstrated by a 2009 UMass President’s Office Science and Technology Initiative award to TIMBR ($170,000) in recognition of our leadership role in developing the biofuels research and development cluster. This award was matched by a $55,000 supplement from the Vice Chancellor for Research and Engagement and the College of Natural Sciences and Mathematics.
Established Leadership
TIMBR is led by a team of three UMass Amherst faculty members: Michael Henson, Professor of Chemical Engineering and Director of the Process Design and Control Center, who is a leader in the development of new process systems engineering technology; Danny Schnell, Professor and Head of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology, who is an expert in plant biology, biotechnology and biomass production; and Susan Leschine, Professor of Microbiology, who is an expert on microbial physiology and a pioneer in the area of consolidated bioprocessing. These three individuals bring established research expertise and administrative experience to the Institute, reflecting the interdisciplinary strength of its investigators.
Ability to Attract Funding
Funding opportunities from federal agencies for bioenergy related research are growing considerably. Energy independence and renewable energy are a major component of the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act, which provides increases of $2.5B for NSF and $1.6B for DOE science programs. It is anticipated that the joint USDA-DOE Biomass Research and Development Initiative will be expanded considerably, and DOE is currently considering funding a group of regional renewable energy hubs (e-DIIs). The Obama administration also is poised to announce significant new funding initiatives in renewable energy research. We are aware that the New England Clean Energy Council and the newly formed Massachusetts Clean Energy Center are positioning Massachusetts to take advantage of these opportunities. With its history of participating in multi-institutional collaborations and established industrial partnerships, TIMBR is well positioned to play a major role in any new DOE regional centers. Renewable energy is clearly a priority for the Commonwealth and the nation, and TIMBR is poised to provide leadership and actively participate in developing the bioenergy cluster within Massachusetts and the region.
4 Plan for Assessing Effectiveness
The overall goal of these hires is to complete the portfolio of biofuels research on campus. This will position TIMBR to be highly competitive for larger multi-investigator research funding. In addition to the ability of the hires to obtain individual research funding, our criteria for assessing the impact of these hires on TIMBR will be:
--Submission of a proposal to the NSF Research Experiences for Undergraduate (REU) Program, and submission of a preproposal to the NSF Integrative Graduate Education and Research -Traineeship (IGERT) Program within two years.
--Submission of additional NSF MRI preproposals to fund high throughput instrumentation within two years of hiring date.
--Initiate planning for an NSF Science & Technology Center proposal to promote sustainability of TIMBR research and training components.
--Coordinate establishment of our multi-institutional research consortium to be ready for the next wave of DOE funding (e.g. e-DIIs).
Description of Positions
Biochemistry and Molecular Biology
BMB is requesting to hire a faculty member at the level of assistant professor in the area of plant biochemistry, with a focus on understanding the control of cellular metabolism as it relates to resource allocation and biomass traits. This position has been identified as a critical component of research within the area of biomass feedstock development that is lacking within TIMBR. BMB has established expertise in plant growth and development (Alice Cheung, Jennifer Normanly and Danny Schnell). This hire would complement the molecular and cellular focus of these groups by developing systems and genomic level tools to assess the control of growth and development at the level of the whole organism. The hire also is consistent with the 2007 BMB AQAD study that identified an individual that uses the tools of bioinformatics and computational biology to address central questions about biological networks, pathways, and signal transduction as critical for a new faculty hire. This person also would complement the senior faculty position in the area of Systems and Computational Biology that is supported by the Massachusetts Life Sciences New Faculty Start-up grant to BMB.
Chemical Engineering
Chemical Engineering is requesting to hire an Assistant Professor in the general area of microbial metabolic engineering, with a particular emphasis on engineering cellulose
degradation enzymes and primary metabolic pathways for biofuels production. This expertise is highly underrepresented in TIMBR and would enable a broad range of research projects in biomass degradation and microbial conversion technologies. Chemical Engineering has established expertise in microbial biotechnology and metabolic engineering (Neil Forbes, Michael Henson, Susan Roberts, Lianhong Sun), but they lack a faculty member dedicated to combining these areas towards biofuels production. This hire would also complement the Department's established strength in catalytic conversion technologies (Curt Conner, Paul Dauenhauer, George Huber). In addition to filling an important gap in TIMBR, this hire would contribute substantially to initiatives in the Institute of Cellular Engineering (ICE).
5 Microbiology
The Microbiology department is world renowned in the field of environmental microbiology. Five of its faculty members (Leschine, Holden, Nüsslein, Lovley and Schloss) prospect for new microbes with relevance to the energy industry. The department identifieda critical need in our AQAD report for expertise in microbial engineering to facilitate the translation of microbial discovery programs to various applications. We request a new faculty hire in this area with expertise in cellular modeling and the engineering of heterologous systems. This faculty member would contribute to the further development of our computional and systems biology programs. Laboratory and office space Morrill I N134 or the NSB will be available for the new faculty member. The new faculty member would benefit from the Institute for Cellular Engineering training grant and the proposed NSF Center for Building a Better Cell.
Plant, Soil and Insect Sciences
PSIS seeks to hire two junior faculty members in the area of plant molecular biology. To make biofuels a sustainable and cost-effective alternative to fossil fuels, it is critical to develop non-food crops as feedstocks and tailor them to grow on marginal land with low agronomic inputs and without displacing the agricultural land used for food production and environmental degradation. Two new positions that will strengthen the existing TIMBR cluster are: 1) crop protection/biotic stress, and 2) plant metabolic engineering/plant bioproducts.
1. Crop protection/biotic stress: Plants face a wide array of environmental stresses including abiotic (drought, high temperature, salinity, cold/frost, heavy metals etc) and biotic (insect, pathogens) stresses that cause a significant loss of crop productivity in terms of seed yields and biomass. Therefore, it is critical to enhance crop tolerance to these environmental stresses using molecular biology approaches. Faculty in the department of Plant, Soil, and Insect Sciences have expertise with insect molecular biology and physiology (John Burand, Stephen Rich) and another faculty, Om Parkash, is optimizing and engineering the biofuels crops for enhanced tolerance to abiotic stresses. Additionally, Geunhwa Jung is developing/breeding plants for pathogen resistance. Therefore, this new hire in Crop protection/Biotic stress focus will directly interact with other faculty to develop a research program for crop protection via enhancing insect resistance in crop plants.
2. Plant metabolic engineering/plant bioproducts: Due to the recent advances in plant biotechnology and in this age of ‘omics’, there is a tremendous opportunity to utilize genomics and proteomics tools to profile the metabolic output of plants and use this to optimize biofuels characteristics and for bioproduct development. On the UMass Amherst campus, we do not have expertise in this area. This new hire in plant metabolic engineering/plant bioproducts will strengthen the biofuel cluster and the UMass vision to be a leader in bioenergy and bioproducts development.
6 APPENDICES
List of TIMBR Participants
Name Affiliations Participation
Scott Auerbach Chemistry Faculty
Erin Baker Mechanical & Industrial Engineering Faculty Paul Barten Natural Resource Conservation Faculty
Tobias Baskin Biology Faculty
Magdalena Bezanilla Biology Faculty
Jeffrey Blanchard Microbiology Faculty
Curtis Conner Chemical Engineering Faculty
David Damery Natural Resource Conservation Faculty
David Ford Chemical Engineering Faculty
Samuel Hazen Biology Faculty
Michael Henson Chemical Engineering Co-director
Stephen Herbert Plant, Soil & Insect Sciences Faculty
James Holden Microbiology Faculty
Shaw Ling Hsu Polymer Science & Engineering Faculty
George Huber Chemical Engineering Faculty
Matthew Kelty Natural Resource Conservation Faculty
Susan Leschine Microbiology Co-director
Dimitrios Maroudas Chemical Engineering Faculty
Lynne McLandsborough Food Science Faculty
Lakis Mountziaris Chemical Engineering Faculty
Jennifer Normanly Biochemistry & Molecular Biology Faculty Om Parkash Plant, Soil & Insect Sciences Faculty Randall Prostak Plant, Soil & Insect Sciences Faculty Danny Schnell Biochemistry & Molecular Biology Co-director Richard Stein Polymer Science & Engineering Faculty
Lianhong Sun Chemical Engineering Faculty
Elsbeth Walker Biology Faculty
