Institute of Microbiology, Chinese Academy of Sciences (IMCAS) and UK’s TMO Renewables Ltd. signed an agreement on their collaborative project "Regulation of Sporulation and Mebabolism in Geobacillus spp" on April 23, 2012.

The collaborative project aims to improve TMO thermophiles by improving its ability of metabolizing pentose and other less favorable sugars. Furthermore, sporulation mechanism of TMO strain will be determined in order to eliminate sporulation of TMO industrial strain. The collaborative project will help improve transforming substrate to bioethanol.

The project is conducted by Prof. YANG Keqian’s team in IMCAS, which is currently actively working on the identification and characterization of novel enzymatic reactions and metabolic pathways, their improvement and application.

TMO Renewables Ltd is a UK developer of a new process for converting biomass into fuel ethanol.