The BBSRC has awarded £2.8M to the BBSRC Marine Wood Borer Enzyme Programme, which involves polysaccharide-active enzyme studies in the group of Professor Paul Dupree.
Research by a team of scientists led by Professor Simon McQueen-Mason of the University of York is investigating how marine invertebrates including gribble and shipworms digest wood. The BBSRC Marine Wood Borer Enzyme Programme builds on research into wood-boring gribble led by the team as part of BBSRC Sustainable Bioenergy Centre. These marine animals eat a lot of wood, and understanding their digestive systems is paving the way to develop better enzymes and processes for making biofuels and animal feed out of non-food woody biomass such as waste paper and straw.