Fossil fuels seep their way into almost every aspect of American life.

Six months into a year-long fellowship at Argonne National Laboratory, materials science and engineering PhD student Samuel Marks’ research took an unexpected turn.

An insect’s gut might seem an inhospitable place to settle in, but diverse microbes nonetheless make their home there. Yet in the gut, there’s a struggle for the nutrients needed to survive among the resident bacteria and fungi — not to mention the insect.

Alex Linz has thousands of multi-talented, microscopic labmates.

“Why do I love microbes? I think it’s just crazy that they’re all around us, and we can’t see them, and yet if you can dream it up, microbes probably do it,” says the UW–Madison postdoctoral researcher.

Turning bioenergy crops into fuels and other products requires breaking down the complex mixture of polysaccharides found in plant material. Glycoside hydrolase family 5 (GH5) is a large and diverse family of enzymes able to digest a wide range of polysaccharides.

Assistant professor of biochemistry Ophelia Venturelli was recently named to a list of 34 young researchers featured in the journal Biochemistry’s “Future of Biochemistry: The International Issue” special issue.

Five University of Wisconsin–Madison professors have earned prestigious awards from the American Chemical Society (ACS). With more than 156,000 members, ACS is the largest scientific society in the world.