NUtech Innovator of the Year: Paul Blum
University Communications
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09/15/2015
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Paul Blum, UNL Charles Bessey Professor of Biological Sciences, receives the NUtech Ventures Innovator of the Year award.
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- [00:00:01.043][music]
- [00:00:04.180]Graduate student Ben Pavlik may someday own a business based on technology
- [00:00:08.209]he developed that would make surgery safer for patients.
- [00:00:12.609]Pavlik's mentor is Professor Paul Blum.
- [00:00:15.489]He has really changed the way that I think about science
- [00:00:19.985]and the way that I pursue it.
- [00:00:21.707]He has a lot of expertise and depth of knowledge.
- [00:00:25.449]Blum is a role model for bringing research from the bench to the market.
- [00:00:30.561]That's entrepreneurship that leads to the potential
- [00:00:33.329]creation of new industries.
- [00:00:36.209]And it's that creation of new industries that keeps America strong.
- [00:00:40.081]Has to keep happening, innovation is essential.
- [00:00:42.865]One of Blum's innovations improved the process of making ethanol.
- [00:00:46.385]He was able to engineer a corn plant with built in enzymes, making it cheaper to produce the fuel.
- [00:00:54.386]This concept is now licensed across the corn belt where ethanol is produced.
- [00:00:59.393]And it's been a very successful licensed technology.
- [00:01:04.025]The concept is built on Blum's research with extremophiles,
- [00:01:07.561]organisms that live under extreme conditions like the hot springs of Yellowstone.
- [00:01:12.649]These are rock samples that come from one of these hot environments where
- [00:01:18.545]they are sulfur rich.
- [00:01:20.249]Enzymes from extremophiles can withstand high temperatures
- [00:01:23.673]without losing stability, the ideal ingredient for making ethanol.
- [00:01:28.737]Other applications include production of hydrogen as a clean renewable energy source.
- [00:01:34.097]Our part is to understand the biology of hydrogen synthesis
- [00:01:37.849]using the bacterial genetics techniques.
- [00:01:41.073]NUtech Ventures helps researchers translate the complex languages of patents and marketing.
- [00:01:46.521]We work with people that are actually on our side.
- [00:01:49.673]That gives Blum more time to do what he loves:
- [00:01:52.417]discovering new ways to make life better.
- [00:01:55.585][music]
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