Innovative Biosynthetic Pathways to Advanced Biofuels

The purposes of this amendment are to: 1. Modify Section IV.C.3 - ?Merit Review Criterion Discussion?; 2. Modify the definition of ?High-Energy Impact Biobased Products? in Appendix A ? Definitions; 3. Incorporate administrative and grammatical corrections in the document; and 4. Add ?Index of Merit Review Criteria? as a required document for submission. The Biomass Program has recently developed Critical Technology Goals (CTG) related to a) converting biomass into processable sugars or other fractionation products and b) upgrading those processable sugars or biomass fractions into products such as advanced biofuels. These are new program elements which seek to continue the work of the previous Biochemical Platform. The new advances in biotechnology that are facilitating innovative improvements in the biomedical (and similar) fields have not been fully applied to the efforts to develop biotechnology for fuels and products. Synthetic biology technologies hold promise for addressing critical barriers in the biological and chemical production of important advanced biofuels and products, including such barriers as product inhibition, tolerance to inhibitors, process robustness in the face of complex pretreatment processes and low yields, and productivity of conversion processes. This FOA invites the R&D community to apply these newer techniques to enhance and enable the development in biological or hybrid systems for producing advanced biofuels and high energy impact biobased products. The focus of this FOA is found in these two topic areas: 1. Topic Area 1- Intermediate Production: Innovative synthetic biological approaches to the cost-effective fractionation of lignocellulosic biomass, both terrestrial and aquatic, into processable components such as fermentable sugars, modified lignin suitable for conversion to higher value materials, and oligomeric sugar fractions or biopolymers that are more easily converted to monomers for further processing. 2. Topic Area 2 ? Intermediate Transformations: Innovative synthetic biological approaches to the cost-effective and high yield conversion of processable component fractions into advanced biofuels and high-energy impact bioproducts. The desired outcome is to improve the current performance metrics for lignocellulosic processing. The full Funding Opportunity Announcement (FOA) is posted on the EERE Exchange website at https://eere-exchange.energy.gov. Applications must be submitted through the EERE Exchange website to be considered for award. The applicant must first register and create an account on the EERE Exchange website. The Users' Guide for applying to Department of Energy (DOE), Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy's (EERE) Funding Opportunity Announcements (FOA) through Exchange website can be found at https://eere-exchange.energy.gov/Manuals.aspx Information on where to submit questions regarding the content of the announcement and where to submit questions regarding submission of applications is found in the full FOA posted on the EERE Exchange website.