DEREK LOVLEY - "Feeding Acetogenic Clostridia Electricity to Produce Organic Commodities from Carbon Dioxide"
Derek Lovley is a Distinguished Professor in the Department of Microbiology and Director of the Environmental Biotechnology Center at the University of Massachusetts.  Research in his laboratory focuses on: anaerobic microbial processes that impact the natural cycling of carbon and metals in soils and sediments; bioremediation of hydrocarbon and metal contamination; and novel bioenergy strategies that involve microbe-electrode interactions.   Recent research on Clostridia has focused on genome-scale modeling of the metabolism of Clostridium ljungdahlii and genetic manipulation of this organism designed to improve electron transfer from electrodes to cells and expand the diversity of products that C. ljungdahlii can produce from carbon dioxide reduction.

MIKE HIMMEL- "Engineering the Clostridium thermocellum cellulosome" 
Dr. Himmel has over 30 years of research experience in protein biochemistry, recombinant technology, enzyme engineering, new microorganism discovery, and the physicochemistry of macromolecules.  He has also supervised research that targets the application of site-directed-mutagenesis and rational protein design to the stabilization and improvement of important industrial enzymes, especially glycosyl hydrolases.  During his career, Dr. Himmel has been awarded over $100 M in research funding and contributed to over 450 journal papers, meeting abstracts, patents, and books, the latest of which “Biomass Recalcitrance” is listed as a top selling book in science and has been translated into Chinese.

WOLFGANG BUCKEL - "Radical enzymes in clostridial butyrate synthesis".
Wolfgang Buckel is a Professor of Microbiology at the Philipps-Universität Marburg, Germany and a Fellow of the Max-Planck-Society.  His research focusses on special enzymes in amino acid fermentation pathways by clostridia. The fermentation of glutamate to butyrate proceeds via three different pathways, all of which involve radical enzymes: the coenzyme B12 dependent glutamate mutase, the [4Fe-4S] cluster-containing 2-hydroxyglutaryl-CoA dehydratase that requires activation by reduced ferredoxin and ATP, as well as the [4Fe-4S] cluster and FAD-containing 4-hydroxybutyryl-CoA dehydratase. All three pathways terminate in the exergonic reduction of crotonyl-CoA to butyryl-CoA by NADH that drives the endergonic reduction of ferredoxin by NADH, a process called electron bifurcation.

ISABELLE MENIAL-SALLES - “Metabolic Engineering of Clostridium acetobutylicum ATCC 824 for the High-Yield Production of Biofuels”
Dr. Meynial-Salles is an associate professor and a senior staff member of the Biochemical Engineering Department (LISBP), INSA (Technical University), Toulouse, France. Isabelle holds a Ph.D in enzymology, awarded by INSA in 1994. However, since 1995 Isabelle has focused her research on the development of novel and original bioprocesses based on the engineering of bacterial factories. Successes include the first continuous biological process for the production of 1,3 propanediol at high yield from glycerol using recombinant C. acetobutylicum. Currently, Isabelle’s 15-person strong team is implementing metabolic engineering and now, synthetic biology, to construct novel microorganisms for the production of next generation biofuels and bulk chemicals.

WEIHONG JIANG - "CcpA, a Pleiotropic Key Regulator in Butanol-producing Clostridium acetobutylicum"
Weihong Jiang is a professor of microbiology in the Laboratory of Synthetic Biology and deputy director of Institut Pasteur of Shanghai, Chinese Academy of Sciences. Her research focuses on transcriptional factors related to biosynthesis of solvents and antibiotics in clostridia and streptomycetes, and genetic modification of these industry-important strains through metabolic engineering and synthetic biology approaches. Recent research on Clostridia has centered on dissection of the xylose-metabolic pathway and its regulatory mechanism in C. acetobutylicum and C. beijerinckii. The transcriptional factors, such as catabolite control protein A (CcpA) and two-component systems, were intensively investigated.