Feast of Yeast – An AppreciationBy Prof. Dhinakar S. Kompala, University of Colorado, Boulder
Baker’s or brewer’s yeast Saccharomyces cerevisiae has a long history and increasing number of uses in biotechnology. It has an interesting metabolism, which makes it useful either in baking (producing CO2) or in brewing (producing ethanol). It is increasingly used in the large-scale production of biofuels, mainly ethanol from food grains (raising the cost of food) and will be used in the next generation of biofuels (ethanol from agricultural residues such as corn stover, sugar cane bagasse, etc.). Beyond these ancient uses, it has found several modern applications, such as in the synthesis of human therapeutics, e.g. insulin and hepatitis vaccine.
Dhinakar Kompala is in the Department of Chemical and Biological Engineering at the University of Colorado, Boulder. His undergraduate education was at the Indian Institute of Technology, Madras and his graduate education was at Purdue University. He is a recipient of the Presidential Young Investigator award from National Science Foundation.
Thursday, October 2, 2008
Denver Botanic Gardens – Morrison Center
6:30 – 8 p.m.
Denver Botanic Gardens – Morrison Center
6:30 – 8 p.m.