Richard A. Dixon, D.Phil, Director of the Noble Foundation's Plant Biology Division was recently honored with an invitation to serve as a plenary speaker at the American Society of Plant Biologists annual meeting in Boston.

"The major purpose of this year's symposium was to create awareness of the considerable potential of crops and croplands for bioenergy, beyond just corn ethanol," Dixon said. "We wanted to examine the role that biotechnology has to play in the accelerated development of new crops and trees for this purpose."

Dixon addressed the main conference on the use of biotechnology to enhance cellulosic feedstocks for biofuels and bioenergy production. Titled Engineering Plants for Fermentation Efficiency in Production of Liquid Fuels, Dixon's presentation outlined the critical chemical factors that limit ethanol production from plant feedstocks.

Dixon focused his talk on reducing lignin in feedstock plants to improve the conversion of such plants into ethanol. Engineering plants to have a slightly smaller amount of lignin allows for easier transformation of cellulosic material into ethanol, Dixon explained to the conference assembly.

"I wanted to express the importance of this research to the attendees," Dixon said. "The process of turning cellulosic material into ethanol, and doing it more efficiently, may be a key application of plant molecular biology throughout the next two decades."

To see Dixon's presentation, please click on this link: http://www.noble.org/videos/podcasts/.

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News Release Issued: October 18, 2006

The Samuel Roberts Noble Foundation, Inc. (www.noble.org), headquartered in Ardmore, Okla., is a nonprofit organization conducting agricultural, forage improvement and plant biology research; assisting farmers and ranchers through educational and consultative agricultural programs; and providing grants to nonprofit charitable, educational and health organizations.