Moving forward with tobacco as biofuel

New research carried out in Spain has shown that genetically modified tobacco plants are viable as raw material for biofuels, according to a Basque Research story.

In her Ph.D. thesis, Ruth Sanz-Barrio, an agricultural engineer at the NUP/UPNA-Public University of Navarre and researcher at the Institute of Biotechnology, had demonstrated for the first time the viability of using specific tobacco proteins as biotechnological tools in plants, the story said.

Specifically, she had managed to increase the amount of starch produced in the tobacco leaves by 700 percent and fermentable sugars by 500 percent.

“We believe that these genetically modified plants,” she said, “could be a good alternative to food crops for producing biofuels, and could provide an outlet for the tobacco-producing areas in our country that see their future in jeopardy owing to the discontinuing of European grants for this crop.”

The full story is at http://www.basqueresearch.com/berria_irakurri.asp?Berri_Kod=4745&hizk=I#.UlwFDShSXAQ.