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Biodegradable yet tough enough to withstand hurricanes, leaves get their strength from their “skeleton,” a highly ramified network of fine veins made of a woody compound called lignocellulose.

Additional support was provided by the Center for Lignocellulose Structure and Formation, an Energy Frontier Research Center funded by the DOE.

Velickovic performed all the hands-on experiments in the lab, collecting material for the slides, scanning the samples to view and identify metabolites in each of the sections, and identifying hot spots of lignocellulose degradation.

Synthetic biology could unlock the large-scale use of carbon sources from lignocellulose to coal.

Instead of using starch and sucrose, biofuel production could come from more abundant and underused resources such as lignocellulose, algal biomass and greenhouse gases such as carbon monoxide and carbon dioxide.