Gateway Archive 

Research stories from the BioTechnology Institute

BTI-NAIST Exchange Marks 15 Years

BTI-NAIST Exchange Marks 15 Years

Tim Montgomery Following a visit to Minnesota by three Japanese graduate students from the Nara Institute of Science and Technology (NAIST), a group of four Minnesota graduate students from the BioTechnology Institute (BTI) visited Japan in mid-October. Chris Flynn,...

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A Rewarding Experience in Japan

A Rewarding Experience in Japan

by Tim Montgomery Janice Frias, Katherine Volzing, Chad Satori and Josh Ochocki visited Japan this past November as part of the BioTechnology Institute's ongoing exchange program with the Nara Institute of Science and Technology (NAIST). They travelled to Japan with...

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Advancing Biotech Byte by Byte

Advancing Biotech Byte by Byte

How computational biology is solving the big data dilemma, one question at a time. Plus Q&A's with Dan Knights and Chad Myers When you log onto Facebook, your profile provides the company with a truckload of data about you — where you hang out, what you “Like”,...

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Insights from our Insides, a Q&A with Dan Knights

Insights from our Insides, a Q&A with Dan Knights

We are what we eat but there’s also a host of microbes living in our guts that help us make the most of all that food. Computational Biologist, Dan Knights investigates the dynamic and rapidly evolving relationship between humans and the bugs living within.

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Q&A with Michael Freeman

Q&A with Michael Freeman

New BTI faculty member translates unknown microbial languages into novel possibilities for biotech. By Colleen Smith Michael Freeman joins the Biotechnology Institute this Spring as a new faculty in the College of Biological Sciences. Hired in the Synthetic Biology...

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Fungal Pests Reassessed

Fungal Pests Reassessed

Some fungi have developed a bad reputation as pests eating wood from the buildings where people live and work. But BTI researcher Jonathan Schilling is challenging old assumptions and finding new reasons to study the ubiquitous microorganisms.

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Science, It’s What’s for Dinner

Science, It’s What’s for Dinner

If it’s on the shelf at the grocery store, it must be safe to eat… right? Hopefully, that answer is yes. Yet a dazzling array of microorganisms — not all of them friendly — enjoy human grub in our gastrointestinal tracts as much as we do. How can science help to guarantee the safety of our foods and bodies against an army of opportunist bugs?

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Bio-machines and Nanospheres

Bio-machines and Nanospheres

Imagine for a moment, the conditions necessary to sustain life. What comes to mind? Water? Oxygen? Sunlight? Think again. Many of the world’s smallest organisms have evolved and adapted to live under extreme conditions where these basic building blocks are scarce or absent altogether.

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In the News

The science behind Minnesota mining. MnDRIVE grant recipient Nate Johnson is quoted. MPR News U of M explores link between antibiotics, adult diseases. Dan Knights, a computational biologist, is quoted. Star Tribune Cracking medical mysteries with math. Dan Knights...

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Managing Microbes in Brazil’s Agricultural South

BTI Director travels to Brazil to mentor students researching bioremediation of agriculture chemicals. BY ALLISON KRONBERG BTI Director Michael Sadowsky understands both French and Spanish, but hardly a word of Portuguese. Yet this summer he launched a two-year...

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Primordial Peptides

UMN researcher Burckhard Seelig wins the prestigious Simons Investigator Award and joins the Collaboration on the Origins of Life University of Minnesota researcher Burckhard Seelig (BMBB, BTI) has a longstanding interest in how the earliest forms of life may have...

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Flask crowd

Will Harcombe’s fascination with evolution and ecosystem function adds a dynamic dimension to the quest to better understand — and tap the power of — the microorganisms in our lives. “Community” means different things to different people. To an urban planner, it’s a...

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Palm trees and population genetics

Professor Anthony Dean talks about his part-time faculty appointment in Southern China. Tony Dean (EEB/BTI) recently accepted a part-time post at Sun Yat-sen University in Guangzhou, China, where he will set up a second research lab in addition to his current lab at...

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BTI members recognized for excellence at home and abroad

Romas Kazlauskas brings experience from World Class University Project home to Minnesota This summer Romas Kazlauskas (BTI/ Biochemistry, Molecular Biology, and Biophysics) completed a 5-year collaboration with Seoul National University on lignin biorefinery as part...

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Dan Knights joins BTI

The BioTechnology Institute welcomes Dan Knights, Assistant Professor in the Department of Computer Science and Engineering. Dan received his PhD from the University of Colorado at Boulder, with a certificate in Interdisciplinary Quantitative Biology from the...

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Brandy Toner joins the BioTechnology Institute

An Assistant Professor in the Department of Soil, Water and Climate, Brandy earned her PhD from the University of California-Berkley and completed a postdoctorate fellowship at the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institute. Her research at the University of Minnesota focuses...

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Chad Myers joins the BioTechnology Institute

Chad Myers, Assistant Professor in the Department of Computer Science and Engineering, joined the BioTechnology Institute in 2013. Chad earned his PhD from the Department of Computer Science at Princeton University in the Lewis-Sigler Institute for Integrative...

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Scaling Biotech in Minnesota

Every visit to the BioTechnology Institute features a tour of the Biotechnology Resource Center (BRC), the institute’s 4700 square foot R&D and contract services center. The BRC has grown from humble beginnings in the basement of the Gortner Lab into a state-of-the-art pilot plant performing fermentation process development, recombinant protein expression and downstream processing for clients within the University and beyond.

Celebrating its 27th year in 2013, the Biotechnology Resource Center (BRC) continues to support research at the University while serving as a resource for Minnesota’s biotech industry. Up to 80% of its business comes from Life Science companies ranging from one-person start-ups to some of the biggest names in the biotechnology business.

Income from fermentation services for outside companies helps the BRC fulfill its mission of providing services to the University community at cost, including new equipment and services like a French Press Extruder a Golan press, a Microfluidizer and 550L fermentation tank. Expertise provided by BRC fermentation manager Fred Schendel and his team help scientists involved in basic research develop methodologies for producing molecules at pilot scale—often producing batches of biological compounds at near commercial scale.

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Going Global

BTI Annouces new 5-year academic exchange agreement with Osaka University’s Institute of Scientific and Industrial Research Building on the success of its academic exchange programs with the Nara Advanced Institute of Science and Technology (Nara, Japan), BTI recently...

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Gary Muehlbauer named distinguished McKnight Professor

BTI member Gary Muehlbauer, was recently named a Distinguished McKnight Professor. This award is granted to outstanding faculty members who have recently made the transition to full professor status. Muehlbauer is head of the Department of Plant Biology, and is also a...

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Kechun Zhang joins the BioTechnology Institute

Kechun Zhang BTI/Chemical Engineering and Materials Science BTI welcomes Kechun Zhang, Assistant Professor in the Department of Chemical Engineering and Materials Science. Zhang completed his PhD in chemistry at the California Institute of Technology and his...

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Synthetic Ecology at BTI

New Funding extends BTI’s Synthetic Ecology Initiative In July 2013, the BioTechnology Institute announced a third round of funding for its Synthetic Ecology Initiative, supported by the President’s Initiative on Biocatalysis with funding from Office of the Vice...

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Newsmakers

May 16, 2012 University of Minnesota startup to treat challenging bacterial infection  Current treatments often compound problem, potentially making infection lethal A live biological preparation developed by University of Minnesota researchers could put a stop...

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Yeast study yields insights into origin of multicellular life

Yeast study yields insights into origin of multicellular life Researchers in the BioTechnology Institute (BTI), lead by faculty member Michael Travisano, have demonstrated how multicellular organisms can evolve from single-celled individuals. This important transition...

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Predicting how Microbes Will Work Together

Researchers working with BTI faculty members Yiannis Kaznessis and Claudia Schmidt-Dannert have devised a way to accurately predict growth and behavior of synthetic ecological systems - engineered relationships between different organisms that don't occur in nature....

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Synthetic Ecology Symposium

The synthetic ecology theme of the University of Minnesota Biocatalysis Initiative was highlighted in an April 20th symposium featuring keynote addresses by Douglas Weibel of the University of Wisconsin and Allan Konopka of the U.S. Department of Energy's Pacific...

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Renewable Petroleum

U of M researchers close in on technology for making renewable "petroleum" using bacteria, sunlight and carbon dioxide. University of Minnesota researchers are a key step closer to making renewable petroleum fuels using bacteria, sunlight and carbon dioxide, a goal...

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Balancing the Body’s Bacterial Ecosystems

Bacteria living in the digestive tract – especially in the colon - can have a tremendous impact on human health and quality of life. Research has shown that a number of diseases – including diabetes and bowel dysfunctions such as colitis - are associated with changes...

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Sadowsky Named Director of the BioTechnology Institute

Michael Sadowsky, a recognized authority on using microorganisms to clean up the environment, has been appointed director of the BioTechnology Institute (BTI) effective September 1, 2010. Sadowsky, who is a professor in the University’s Department of Soil, Water and...

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BTI retreat is opportunity to meet and learn

An October 6th retreat was the opportunity for BioTechnology Institute (BTI) faculty and their lab members to learn more about each other and about the broad range of disciplines and applications encompassed by their collective research. It was also the first chance...

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Kaznessis Discusses Synthetic Biology on Radio

Professor Yiannis Kaznessis explained the benefits and perils of synthetic biology during an interview for Access Minnesota. The interview is broadcast by nearly 40 radio stations. Kaznessis commented on the recent 'creation' a living cell from DNA that was...

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Wackett research team wins $2.2 million stimulus grant to explore production of hydrocarbons using bacteria

The U.S. Department of Energy has selected 37 projects for major federal stimulus funding through their Advanced Research Projects Agency-Energy (ARPA-E) venue to pursue breakthrough energy research. BioTechnology Institute faculty member Larry Wackett is lead investigator for a University of Minnesota team which will receive $2.2 million in funding to explore production of liquid hydrocarbon transportation fuels directly from sunlight, water and carbon dioxide using bacteria.

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Coal from Algae Study Published

The results of a BioTechnology Institute (BTI) sponsored study on the potential for producing coal from algae were recently published online in ScienceDirect. The study focused on research conducted by Dr. Steve Heilmann at BTI utilizing hydrothermal carbonization...

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Bacteria can Produce Hydrocarbons

By Tim Montgomery January 1, 2010 Working with synthetic chemist Jack Richman in the lab of Distinguished McKnight University Professor Larry Wackett, graduate student Janice Frias has identified hydrocarbon synthesis in bacteria of the genus Arthrobacter - a key...

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Minnesota Team Wins Gold in iGEM 2009

A Minnesota team of seven undergraduate and four graduate students, guided by BTI Professor Yiannis Kaznessis (Department of Chemical Engineering and Materials Science), were awarded a Gold Medal at The International Genetically Engineered Machine competition (iGEM)...

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