Mission

The vision of JBEI is that bioenergy crops can be converted into economically-viable, carbon-neutral, biofuels and renewable chemicals currently derived from petroleum, and many other bioproducts that cannot be efficiently produced from petroleum.

JBEI’s mission is to establish the scientific knowledge and new technologies in feedstock development, deconstruction and separation, and conversion needed to transform the maximum amount of carbon available in bioenergy crops into biofuels and bioproducts.

When fully scaled, JBEI’s technologies will enable the production of replacements for petroleum derived gasoline, diesel, jet fuel, and bioproducts. In doing so, JBEI will reduce the nation’s dependence on fossil fuels, significantly reduce the amount of carbon added to the atmosphere, reduce contamination of the environment, and provide the scientific tools and knowledge required to transform the bioenergy marketplace.

JBEI develops:

  • bioenergy crops engineered to have low susceptibility to disease and drought and be readily deconstructed into sugar and aromatic intermediates that can be nearly fully utilized by the engineered biofuel- and bioproduct-producing microorganism
  • an integrated, feedstock agnostic deconstruction process using renewable and biocompatible ionic liquids that liberates a high yield of the sugars and lignin-derived intermediates suitable for biological conversion
  • microorganisms engineered with a metabolism to simultaneously utilize the sugars and aromatics resulting from the deconstruction process (and thus match the composition of the engineered plants) and produce a variety of fuels and bioproducts at industrially relevant titers, rates and yields (TRY)
  • new technologies and methods to meet current & future needs in biofuels research by increasing throughput, decreasing reagent use, increasing measurement fidelity and reducing assay time

Inside JBEI’s Emeryville laboratories, researchers use the latest tools in molecular biology, chemical engineering, computational and robotic technologies, and pioneering work in synthetic biology to transform biomass sugars into biofuels and a variety of bioproducts.

Our scientists and staff envision a future when bio-based resources provide transformative advantages for our nation.

JBEI’s core values:

  • Advancing basic science for public benefit
  • Reducing the nation’s dependence on foreign oil
  • Safeguarding public health and the environment by curbing the effects of climate change
  • Reducing organic waste by transforming non-edible biomass such as corn stover, wheat straw, forest and crop residue into biofuels
  • Boosting the economy by creating jobs and growing clean industry
  • Keeping our nation at the vanguard of scientific discovery by providing educational experiences for students, teachers and developing future generations of scientists