Editorial [Hot Topic: New Biotechnologies for Biofuels and Advanced Chemicals Production (Guest Editors: Dr. Juan Carlos Serrano-Ruiz and Dr. Rafael Luque)]

Concerns about diminishing fossil fuel reserves along with the increasing levels of CO2 in the atmosphere are driving society towards the search for new renewable sources of energy. In this sense, biomass has the potential to significantly displace petroleum in the production of fuels and chemicals. Among the number of routes available today for the conversion of biomass into fuels and chemicals, new microbial technologies are currently experiencing a tremendous progress. The improvements in metabolic engineering (i.e. the alteration of inherent metabolic routes to favor production of desired products) and the vast knowledge acquired about the metabolic functioning of model microbes such as Escherichia coli and Saccharomyces cerevisiae are key findings that highlight the aforementioned success. The science of genetic manipulation of microorganisms has reached the point in which a designer microbe can be tailored for production of a specific fuel or chemical at concentrations, in many cases, high enough to reach commercial scale. In this special issue of Current Chemical Biology entitled “New biotechnologies for biofuels and advanced chemicals production” we, as Editors, have intended to select relevant works from worldwide respected and well-known leaders on this hot topic including Prof. Carol S. K. Lin (City University of Hong Kong), Prof. Chaitan Khosla (Stanford University, USA), Prof. Shota Atsumi (University of California, Davis, USA), Prof. Travis S. Bayer (Imperial College London, UK) and Prof. Xuefeng Lu (Key Laboratory of Biofuels, Qingdao, China). The editors were delighted to assemble such an outstanding list of contributors for the special issue and would like to thank deeply the authors and the journal for their cooperation and assistance during the past months. There is only one but most important thing left, the readers! The editors sincerely hope this special issue will be able to attract the attention of many readers in the field as well as introduce many others in the fascinating world of novel biotechnologies for advanced biofuels production, and look forward to enjoying further improvements in this area inspired (why not) by some of the contributions included in this issue. With my best wishes for a successful special issue.