Gene Work Aims To Boost Use Of Ethanol
Standing in a room full of clear plastic boxes stacked on shelves, Richard Hamilton reaches into one of the boxes and pulls out a small, clear vial of seeds with a label on the side.
Each of the seed samples has been altered slightly to see if a little tweak to a gene will make it produce a plant that does better in various conditions — perhaps make it more tolerant to a drought or better able to withstand cold.
These seeds at Ceres Inc. in Thousand Oaks are the foundation for a new generation of plants that can be used for future fuel needs.
Hamilton, president and chief executive of Ceres, said the company uses advanced technology — applied to such efforts as the Human Genome Project — to guide plant development. Ceres, which started out discovering genes and developing traits in row crops, is now nearing the release of its first "energy crop," a bioengineered switchgrass that can be processed into ethanol.
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