The conference organizers welcome you to the 34th Symposium on Biotechnology for Fuels and Chemicals (SBFC), hosted this year by the Oak Ridge National Laboratory. By popular demand, we are back in New Orleans, home of Jazz. On the topic of Jazz, the 34th SBFC will be held in the middle of Jazz Fest 2012 (www.nojazzfest.com) and we encourage you to take advantage of this during the weekends surrounding your SBFC activities.

We have assembled an impressive technical program that includes 19 sessions with one Special Topic evening session on international bioenergy center progress, as well as 2 large poster sessions. Technical topics span new biomass sources and sustainability, biomass recalcitrance and pretreatment, enzyme and microbial advances, new types of biofuels and infrastructure issues, bioprocessing, and biorefineries, and the bioenergy research center update.

As was the case for the 33rd SBFC, there will be 3 concurrent sessions except for poster and special topic sessions. With the two poster sessions, mid-session breaks, a free Wednesday afternoon, and the banquet/reception, there will be ample opportunities for technical discussions and networking across four days of stimulating programming. We encourage you to take full advantage of the meeting by active participation. Again, this year’s Symposium is made possible through the hard work of the staff at the Society for Industrial Microbiology. Remember booking your rooms early, Jazz Fest draws a huge crowd from out of town.

We hope such a program will provide you with vital and interesting information regarding this growing industry as we all seek to have renewable fuels and chemicals make a real, positive impact on our lives.

Jonathan R. Mielenz, ORNL, Conference Chair
Thomas Klasson, USDA ARS, Conference Chair

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