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UI Researcher Uses Modified Yeast to Make Ethanol
URBANA, Ill. (AP) -- A scientist at the University of Illinois says a yeast long used in brewing and baking has the potential to produce ethanol more quickly and efficiently.

Professor Yong-Su Jin tells the News-Gazette he has been working on genetically engineering yeasts to produce biofuels from lesser-known sugars that normally go to waste.

Leading a team of researchers from the UI and other universities and laboratories in the U.S. and South Korea, Jin says he has managed to use xylose, or wood sugar, to make ethanol. Xylose is abundant in stems and leaves.

Jin says the yeast normally would act on glucose and leave the xylose alone, unless an expensive enzyme is added. But he says he has been able to modify the yeast so the enzyme is not needed.

(Copyright 2011 by The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved.)
01 05 11 by Newsroom
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