May 11, 2016
Once a year or so, Michelle O'Malley or one of her students drives to the Santa Barbara Zoo to grab samples of manure from goats, sheep, or other grazing animals. These smelly bundles contain fungal colonies and other microbes that digested grasses in the herbivore's gut. By isolating and studying these grass-digesting microbes, O'Malley is discovering how they break grasses into sugars, and the results are enabling new bioengineering approaches to biofuels.