2016 marked the 100th anniversary of the first industrial operation of the Acetone-Butanol-Ethanol (ABE) fermentation, based on the Weizmann Clostridium acetobutylicum strain. The ABE fermentation is widely celebrated and studied for its impact on industrial biotechnology, war, and patent policies. It was originally used to produce acetone for the manufacturing of explosives, but after World-War I, the focus turned to butanol to manufacture lacquers for the car industry. C. acetobutylicum has been established not only as a model organism for the ABE fermentation but also for clostridial genetics and physiology. The last 15-20 years have seen great progress in understanding the genetic and physiology but also the engineering of this and many other clostridia, an ever expanding list of them in fact. Organisms of importance to production of chemicals and fuels, cellulose and hemicellulose degradation, CO2 fixation (the “acetogens” among clostridia), but also those of importance to human health, notably those of importance to human microbiome, and the human pathogens. My goal is to provide a brief historical perspective of the field, and then emphasize recent advances and future needs to advance clostridial biotechnologies, which have come a long way from obscurity to prominence.

Award Address (E. V. Murphree Award in Industrial & Engineering Chemistry sponsored by ExxonMobil Research & Engineering Company). 101 Years of clostridial biotechnologies

253rd National Meeting (2017)

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