47th Symposium on Biomaterials, Fuels and Chemicals (SBFC)

47th Symposium on Biomaterials, Fuels and Chemicals (SBFC) is organized by Society for Industrial Microbiology and Biotechnology (SIMB) and will be held from May 04 - 07, 2025 at The Pfister Hotel, Milwaukee, Wisconsin, United States of America.

Theme: Focused on the latest in microbiology and biotechnology for fuels, chemicals, and biomaterials

Description:
This year’s program features 15 technical sessions spanning cellular and process engineering, feedstock utilization and design, and biomaterials. We are particularly excited to introduce a new session on synthetic biology for space exploration, as well as a special session that highlights the many past, present and future contributions of midwestern companies to the bioeconomy, in celebration of the conference’s location. These will be joined by the latest advances in metabolic engineering, valorization of low-cost feedstocks, deconstruction of plastics, single-carbon metabolism, bioenergy crop development, lignocellulose breakdown, and more. Tying everything together will be our keynote speaker, Prof. Michelle O’Malley, whose work spans all of the central themes of SBFC and whose new NSF-funded anaerobic foundry will provide exciting opportunities for collaboration throughout the SBFC community.

As always, SBFC provides an excellent opportunity for the next generation of researchers to share their work, with dedicated sessions for student talks and rapid-fire poster pitches, in addition to our poster sessions. For many students, SBFC is their first conference, and we pride ourselves on fostering a welcoming environment, as well as opportunities for interactions with prospective future employers.

Putting together this meeting takes a lot of effort, and we are incredibly grateful for the hard work of our topic area committees and session conveners. Special thanks go to the SIMB staff, in particular Haley Cox and Tina Hockaday, for all they do for this meeting and the other SIMB events.

TOPIC AREA 1
Biofuels, bioproducts, and synthetic biology
Topics of interest include: Integrating chemical and biological processing for bioconversion, the importance of redox balancing for successful bioproduction, re-creating complex phenotypes, challenges associated with engineering biology and biomanufacturing in space, and metabolic engineering strategies to overcome product titer limitations

TOPIC AREA 2
Alternative feedstocks and biosynthetic materials
Topics of interest are waste valorization, biological fixation of CO2, use of reduced single-carbon (C1) feedstocks, novel biomaterials (including engineered living materials), and plastic deconstruction. This topic area places an emphasis on development of non-model organisms and new metabolic pathways employed to valorize alternative feedstocks, as well as the production of new-to-nature materials not available from chemical routes.

TOPIC AREA 3
Engineering and deconstruction of biomass
Topics of interest involve engineering of bioenergy crops for fuels and bioproduct production, biomass deconstruction and fractionation, biomass degrading enzymes, and cell free systems among others.