On February 1, the College of Agricultural and Life Sciences led a campus-wide initiative to propose that the U.S. Department of Energy establish a Great Lakes Bioenergy Research Center (GLBRC) at the UW-Madison. The Center will develop the technologies needed to increase the contribution of biofuels to the nation’s energy portfolio. To accomplish this goal, biologists, physical scientists, engineers and computer scientists within the Great Lakes Bioenergy Research Center would work in partnership with other leading institutions, laboratories and companies in the region, across the country and around the world. Two Bioenergy Research Centers are expected to be operational before the end of 2007; each to be funded at up to 25 million dollars per year for the next 5 years.

For more information, download a copy of the GLBRC proposal’s executive summary at https://cals.wisc.edu/ecals/downloads/GLBRC1Page.doc or contact Tim Donohue, Department of Bacteriology, at tdonohue@bact.wisc.edu or (608) 262-4663.