Why a Hong Kong Plant Scientist with a Biofuel Research Breakthrough Has to Leave for Greener Pastures

by Viola Zhou (South China Morning Post) Lydia Lam Pui-ying will further her study at Kyoto University in Japan --

Hong Kong and Japanese scientists have discovered a new way to make biofuel from rice straw, which may offer a cheaper alternative to chemical methods currently employed.

However, due to a lack of research opportunities in the city, a leading scientist in the study will have to seek support elsewhere.

Lydia Lam Pui-ying, a research assistant at the University of Hong Kong, spent three years studying tricin, a special component in the cells of cereal plants, paving the way for publication of the final study in scientific journal Plant Physiology.

In September, Lam will start her postdoctoral fellowship at Kyoto University, where she will continue her work on plant cell research and the production of biofuel.

In the study published last month, Lam and her colleagues from HKU and Kyoto found that energy production from rice straw could be increased by 37 per cent after inhibiting the production of tricin in the plant.

The process, involving genetic engineering, makes it easier to break down cellulose – an organic compound in plant cells – into glucose, which is then used to produce ethanol. READ MORE