UF Research Mines Waste For Ethanol Production

Tampa Bay Online
By LINDSAY PETERSON
lpeterson@tampatrib.com
Published: November 16, 2008

GAINESVILLE - Inside his bright, new laboratory at the University of Florida, researcher Lonnie Ingram is trying to build a better bug.

That's what scientists and others call the microscopic organisms they are counting on to create a new U.S.-based fuel industry free of ties to foreign oil producers.

More than 20 years ago, Ingram and other UF researchers genetically engineered a bacterium that could turn common grasses, agricultural waste and wood chips into ethanol for our cars. Called cellulosic ethanol, it is an alternative to ethanol made from corn, which has lost favor because it uses land also needed for food crops.

Ingram, a microbiology and cell science professor, has devoted the better part of his career to the cellulosic cause. In 1991, he and the university received a U.S. patent on his first ethanol-making organism. Since then, his work has received 19 more patents and has attracted investors who bought the rights to use two of the microbial creations.

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