Free panel discussion! From the sun to your gas tank: A new breed of biofuels may help solve the global energy challenge and reduce the impact of fossil fuels on global warming. KTVU Channel 2 health and science editor John Fowler will moderate a panel of Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory scientists who are developing ways to convert the solar energy stored in plants into liquid fuels.

http://www.lbl.gov/LBL-PID/fobl/

Speakers:

Jay Keasling is one of the foremost authorities in the field of synthetic biology. He is applying this research toward the production of advanced biofuels that can replace gasoline on a gallon-for-gallon basis. Keasling is Berkeley Lab’s Acting Deputy Director and the Chief Executive Officer of the U.S. Department of Energy’s Joint BioEnergy Institute.

Jim Bristow is deputy director of programs for the U.S. Department of Energy Joint Genome Institute (JGI), which is a national user facility headquartered in Walnut Creek, CA. He developed and implemented JGI’s Community Sequencing Program, which provides large-scale DNA sequencing and analysis of plants and microbes to advance genomics related to bioenergy and environmental characterization and cleanup.

Susannah Green Tringe is a computational biologist with the U.S. Department of Energy Joint Genome Institute (JGI). Since joining JGI in 2003, she helped pioneer the field of metagenomics, which is a new strategy for isolating, sequencing, and characterizing DNA extracted directly from environmental samples, such as the contents of the termite gut, which yielded enzymes responsible for breakdown of wood into fuel.