The license agreement caps a two-year research and development program at WPI’s Life Sciences and Bioengineering Center (LSBC) at Gateway Park, funded by EdeniQ, to optimize elements of the process used for producing cellulosic ethanol. Terms of the license agreement were not disclosed.

The WPI team, led by Dr. Alex DiIorio, assistant professor of biology and biotechnology and director of the WPI Bioprocess Center at Gateway Park, went into the field and took samples of organisms they found in places where trees and plants were decaying. They analyzed the arsenal of bacteria found in termite guts, as well as fungi and other organisms that secrete enzymes that convert cellulose into glucose that the organisms can use for nutrition.

DiIorio’s team identified approximately 100 types of bacteria, including many novel strains not previously characterized, that appeared to be essential for breaking up cellulose in to sugars. The team then embarked on an intensive screening and optimization process, first, looking for organisms that naturally produced higher levels of glucose from cellulose.

Then, using a variety of laboratory techniques, DiIorio’s team worked to manipulate the best performers for use on a commercial scale. EdeniQ now has the exclusive rights to further develop those organisms for use in their proprietary processes for producing cellulosic ethanol.

The research from WPI is integral to our on-going development of a scalable, cost-effective cellulosic solution. This technology not only plays an important part in our low-cost process for converting cellulosic biomass into ethanol, but also is incorporated into our Corn³ Yield Enhancement Program which reduces the amount of corn used to make first-generation ethanol by about 10 percent.

—Larry Gross, CEO of EdeniQ

Members of the DiIorio lab team who worked on the EdeniQ project include: Chris Dacuhna, now a senior scientist at EdeniQ, Deepak Ramamurthy, research assistant at WPI, and Chris McPhee, laboratory manager at WPI.