Ready for market: New process boosts clean, cost-efficient chemical production

A re-engineered yeast strain that efficiently produces succinic acid has been developed, which allows this valuable chemical to be produced at a lower cost.

Peer-Reviewed Publication

University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign Institute for Sustainability, Energy, and Environment

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From left to right: Shih-I (Harry) Tan, Zhixin Zhu, Hao Xu, Huimin Zhao. Credit: Julie Wurth/CABBI

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Credit: Julie Wurth/CABBI

Building on their success developing a cleaner way to make valuable organic acids, researchers from the Center for Advanced Bioenergy and Bioproducts Innovation (CABBI) have pushed one product closer to commercialization with a major upgrade in yield.

A CABBI team from the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign and Princeton University re-engineered the metabolism of the yeast Issatchenkia orientalis to supercharge its fermentation of plant glucose into succinic acid – an important industrial chemical used in food additives and a diverse array of agricultural and pharmaceutical products. Since I. orientalis can tolerate highly acidic conditions, it’s an ideal host for organic acid production.

This natural fermentation process, relying on yeasts and renewable plant material, is more environmentally friendly than conventional production using petrochemicals. But cost remains a barrier for commercial adoption, according to CABBI Conversion Theme Leader Huimin Zhao, Professor of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering (ChBE) at Illinois and a lead author on the study. Improving the yield – the amount of succinic acid produced from a gram of glucose – would make the process more economically viable.

The CABBI team previously created a cost-effective, end-to-end succinic acid pipeline using an engineered strain of I. orientalis, with added enzymes and genes that allowed it to better utilize sucrose from sugarcane and boost its production of succinic acid. That pilot project showed the engineered yeast could produce 110 grams per liter (g/L) of succinic acid in low pH conditions, with an overall yield of 64% after fermentation and processing.

In the new study, published in Nature Communications, they used a different metabolic engineering strategy on I. orientalis called “decompartmentalization” and boosted yield to 85% – a significant improvement, Zhao said.

All living cells, including the yeast cells used in this study, use energy from sugars like glucose to make NADH (nicotinamide adenine dinucleotide plus hydrogen), a coenzyme that helps certain enzymes perform chemical reactions. NADH acts like a rechargeable battery storing energy. This energy can be used to build succinic acid and other reduced chemicals – those gaining an electron through a reaction known as oxidation-reduction.

However, there may not be enough NADH in the right part of the cell to support production. This problem is especially challenging in yeasts because their cells contain different compartments that do different jobs – such as mitochondria for energy production and peroxisomes for the breakdown of certain chemicals – and NADH is spread out across these different compartments.

To overcome this, researchers moved key parts of the NADH-making system from the mitochondria into the main area of the cell, the cytosol, where succinic acid is made. This “decompartmentalization” gave the cells more energy-producing NADH where it was needed, further improving succinic acid production from renewable sugars.

“These advances bring us closer to greener manufacturing processes that benefit both the environment and the economy,” said Vinh Tran, primary author on the paper and former Ph.D. student with Zhao in ChBE and at the Carl R. Woese Institute for Genomic Biology (IGB).

Succinic acid is one of the U.S. Department of Energy’s top 12 bio-based value-added chemicals, and a well-engineered microbial strain is highly sought after for its efficient and economical production. The CABBI team’s earlier analysis showed that the minimum product selling price (MPSP) is most sensitive to fermentation yield, indicating that further yield improvement was essential for enhancing the financial viability of the engineered I. orientalis.

Boosting succinic acid yield to 0.85 grams per gram of glucose (g/g) reduced the MPSP to 97 cents per kilogram, down from $1.30 previously.

“That is huge,” Zhao said. “For those industrial chemicals, even a few cents is a big reduction.”

About 700,000 tons of succinic acid are produced each year, a market totaling $200 million, so the savings quickly multiply, Zhao said.

Companies have already expressed interest in scaling up this technology for commercial use, which could potentially happen within a year, Zhao said.

The CABBI team is applying these approaches to produce other industrially important organic acids, such as 3-hydroxypropionic acid (3-HP), as part of its work to develop biofuels and biochemicals from biomass crops.

Co-authors on the study included: Shih-I Tan, Hao Xu, and Zhixin Zhu of IGB and ChBE at Illinois; CABBI Co-PI Joshua D. Rabinowitz, Daniel Weilandt, and Xi Li of the Department of Chemistry and Lewis Sigler Institute for Integrative Genomics at Princeton University; and CABBI Co-PI Jeremy Guest and Sarang S. Bhagwat of IGB and the Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering at Illinois.

— Article by CABBI Communications Specialist Julie Wurth

Succinic acid production in bench-top bioreactors. Credit: Julie Wurth/CABBI

Credit

Julie Wurth/CABBI

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Journal

Nature Communications

DOI

10.1038/s41467-025-62304-w 

Method of Research

Experimental study

Subject of Research

Not applicable

Article Title

Decompartmentalization of the yeast mitochondrial metabolism to improve chemical production in Issatchenkia orientalis

Article Publication Date

2-Aug-2025

COI Statement

A provisional patent application on the metabolic engineering strategies and engineered strains (63/790,955) has been filed by V.G.T. and H.Z. based on this work. The remaining authors declare no competing interests.

 

Forget materialism, a simple life is happier: research

University of Otago

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In an age where billionaires and conspicuous consumption are increasingly on display, new Otago-led research shows a simple life really is a happier life.

The study led by University of Otago – Ōtākou Whakaihu Waka Department of Marketing researchers has recently been published in the Journal of Macromarketing.

After setting out to understand the relationship between consumption and wellbeing, the researchers found people are happier and more satisfied when adopting sustainable lifestyles and resisting the temptations of consumerism.

They analysed data from a representative sample of more than 1000 New Zealanders, made up of 51 per cent men and 49 per cent women, with a median age of 45 and a median annual household income of $50,000.

They found the commitment to simple living, or ‘voluntary simplicity’ as it is formally known, leads to wellbeing through providing more opportunities for personal interaction and social connection than conventional contexts of exchange, such as community gardens, sharing resources, and peer-to-peer lending platforms.

Women are more likely to adopt a simple life than men, although more research is needed to understand why.

Co-author Associate Professor Leah Watkins says consumer culture promotes happiness as being typically associated with high levels of income and the capability it affords to acquire and accumulate material possessions.

“However, research is clear that attitudes to, and experiences of, materialistic approaches to life do not lead to increases in happiness or wellbeing. Nor do they lead to sustainable consumption necessary for planetary health.”

Between 2000 and 2019, global domestic material consumption increased by 66 per cent, tripling since the 1970s to reach 95.1 billion metric tons.

Growing consumer affluence and higher living standards have resulted in warnings of alarming trends of environmental degradation from human consumption.

This, coupled with global warming and post-pandemic health and financial anxieties, has led researchers and policymakers to call for a better understanding of the links between simple consumer lifestyles and wellbeing.

But co-author Professor Rob Aitken says this isn’t a case of just throwing out all your worldly possessions.

“It’s not directly the commitment to material simplicity that leads to wellbeing, but the psychological and emotional need fulfilment that derives from relationships, social connection, community involvement and a sense of living a purposeful and meaningful life.

“In a world where billionaire weddings are treated like state occasions and private yachts are the new status symbols, voluntary simplicity offers a quiet, powerful counter-narrative — one that values enough over excess, connection over consumption, and meaning over materialism.”

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Journal

Journal of Macromarketing

DOI

10.1177/02761467251339399 

Method of Research

Observational study

Subject of Research

People

Article Title

Consume Less, Live Well: Examining the Dimensions and Moderators of the Relationship Between Voluntary Simplicity and Wellbeing

 

Strict rules for short term rentals and Airbnbs no solution to our housing crisis

University of South Australia

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Strict regulations on short term rental accommodation may not help improve housing supply or affordability and can actually hurt tourism, according to new research by the University of South Australia.

Short term rentals, such as those offered on online platforms like Airbnb, have become a popular alternative to traditional hotels, providing travellers with more affordable, unique and localised experiences. However, short term rentals are often blamed for driving up rents and making residential housing harder to find, leading many governments to introduce strict regulations to limit them.

UniSA tourism researchers have found evidence to suggest that simply cracking down on short term rentals might not be the key to South Australia’s housing crisis, and that the State Government should consider other solutions for the issue.

South Australia’s short term rental sector is currently under review. In March 2025, the SA Parliament established a select committee to investigate the short-term rental sector’s impact on housing affordability, community dynamics and potential regulatory measures. The committee’s findings are imminent.

“Our analysis shows that recent efforts to impose strict regulations or outright bans on short term rentals, including in one of the world’s most must-visit destinations – New York City – fail to have any meaningful impact on the housing market,” says lead researcher Professor Peter O’Connor.

“Data suggests that restrictions neither significantly increase the supply of long-term housing, nor reduce rental prices. Instead, in NYC specifically, (long term) rental prices have increased at a faster rate than comparable cities, and residential vacancy rates remain largely unchanged.

“NYC hotels have benefited from the ban, experienced high growth in occupancy and room rates compared to before regulations were introduced. Not only has this turned New York into a hyper expensive destination for travellers, but the knock-on multiplier effect to the local economy has plummeted due to both lower visitor numbers and more concentrated visitor spending. Hotels win out, at the expense of tourists and locals.

“Learning from this lesson, Australia should seriously consider alternative ways to address the housing crisis, rather than obsessively focusing on short term rentals.”

Short term rentals are defined as furnished apartments or houses rented for periods of less than a month, typically through online platforms such as Airbnb or Stayz. Owners might live on site at the same time as the renter, or they might live elsewhere. This alternative form of accommodation has emerged in recent years as an alternative, more authentic form of accommodation to traditional hotels, allowing travellers to ‘live like a local’, typically in a neighbourhood less frequented by tourists.

Co-author of the UniSA research, Dr Jessica Mei Pung, points out that short term rentals contribute to local economies through rental income and visitor spending. Beside benefiting from cultural exchanges with travelling guests, hosts earn additional income from the rental fees. Visitor spending also positively impacts restaurants, retail and attractions – all of which contribute to the destination and the wider economy.

“Regulating short term rentals allows governments to appear proactive on addressing the housing issue but the relative effectiveness of such restrictions is generally not considered.  If the aim is to increase the availability and affordability of residential property, the evidence clearly shows that restrictions and bans have limited, if any, demonstratable effect”.

Limitations for short term rentals are currently in place in parts of Australia including in NSW with a 180-day stay limit per year where the host isn’t present. Councils can implement lower limits, as has Byron Bay which has a 60-day cap. Western Australia, on the other hand, is offering a $10,000 financial incentive to owners of short term rentals to return them to the long-term rental market.  

Rather than introducing limitations, Prof O’Connor and Dr Pung say this approach may be more advisable if policymakers really want to address the housing issue, with a recent survey by Airbnb claiming that many hosts would rather let properties lie idle rather than rent them long-term.

DOI

10.1007/978-3-031-83705-0_23 

Subject of Research

Not applicable

Article Title

Exploring the Impact of Short-Term Rental Regulations on Housing Availability and Affordability: A Case Study and Research Agenda

 

Have you been offended by a discriminatory or harmful ad? You might just buy the product it's promoting

Offensive and discriminatory advertisements targeting individuals from vulnerable groups can have long-term effects on their consumer behavior

Ben-Gurion University of the Negev

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BEER-SHEVA, Israel, August 11, 2025 – Time plays a key role in consumer behavior, especially concerning the purchasing patterns of vulnerable groups in society who have been ridiculed in offensive and discriminatory ads. Ben-Gurion University researcher Dr. Enav Friedmann examined the long-term reactions of consumers from discriminated groups after exposure to offensive advertising. Such advertising often manifests in marketing messages that demean excluded groups, reinforce harmful stereotypes, or cross social norms.

Their findings were published last month in Psychology & Marketing (https://doi.org/10.1002/mar.70010). Dr. Friedmann is a member of the Department of Business Administration at Ben-Gurion University of the Negev. She is the head of the LBM research lab, which focuses on marketing,

"The social and psychological implications of such advertisements are profound," explains Dr. Friedmann. "Socially, they normalize prejudice, perpetuate stereotypes, and undermine efforts to achieve equality. We decided to examine these conflicts of social identity combined with consumer behavior. This is a topic that hasn't been researched enough, but it has significant implications for individuals, groups, and businesses in society."

The Study's Approach

To this end, three independent experiments were conducted. They examined the impact of exposure to insulting advertisements or those excluding vulnerable groups (women and people of color) at two time points: immediately upon exposure to the ad, and then 10 days or a month later. The offensive ads were designed to be inspired by authentic advertisements from companies, which contained offensive content toward women and people of color. A total of 640 women and men, both light-skinned and dark-skinned, participated in all the experiments and answered questions related to the brand and their personal feelings.

Key Findings

In the first experiment, a hypothetical ad for a body soap brand called "BubbleSoap" was presented, with a racist implication toward people of color. A dark-skinned family was shown in the 'before' image and a light-skinned family in the 'after' image. It was found that dark-skinned participants who felt their ethnic group was severely discriminated against, and tended to identify less with their group, showed a higher purchase intention for the BubbleSoap brand ten days later compared to participants who did not feel their ethnic group was discriminated against.

The second experiment involved an offensive advertisement toward women for a real brand. Participants were randomly exposed to either non-offensive sexist ads or offensive sexist ads. The offensive version was identical but included the text: "Women, I'm sick of you! I get tired of all of you so quickly," with the well-known tagline below: "You're not you when you're hungry." This ad was inspired by real candy bar ads that mock the idea of men respecting women and aggressively disparage women under the guise of sarcastic humor. After about a month, it was found that women who identified their gender group as significantly discriminated against, and tended to identify less with the female group, were more likely to choose the brand that offended their group. The choice was made at each time point by choosing between three chocolate brands. Of course, the respondents' initial preference for the offensive brand was considered.

In the third experiment, neurological measurements were taken using an EEG device in a lab experiment for a construction company. Participants were randomly exposed to either offensive or non-offensive sexist ads. The offensive version included the text: "She thinks she understands... In big decisions, don't let her decide!" Participants were asked to describe their feelings toward the brand at two points in time. The researchers measured the activation of the participants' right and left frontal brain regions during a brand feeling task. After ten days, among women who identified their group as significantly discriminated against, and tended to identify less with the female group over time, increased activity was found in the left frontal areas (compared to the right) of the brain. These areas are known in the literature to indicate a desire to approach a stimulus.

 

The Paradoxical Phenomenon

The findings revealed a paradoxical phenomenon: participants who reported high levels of perceived discrimination against their group, and over time tended to identify less with the offended group, actually showed an increasing preference for the brand that insulted their group. This was measured through purchase intention, actual product choice, or brain responses indicating an approach toward the brand. This phenomenon aligns with theories of disidentification, a process in which individuals from vulnerable groups come to understand the long-term consequences of harm to their group (reduced self-esteem and group-esteem). Those who feel their group is significantly discriminated against and tend to reduce their identification with the group in order to protect their sense of self-esteem, tend to do so by approaching the object that harmed their group over time.

"The research findings deepen our understanding of how identity threats affect responses in advertising contexts and highlight the ethical considerations brands must address when formulating campaigns," explains Dr. Friedmann. "This research delves into the psychological complexity of identity regulation as a result of exposure to threatening content for consumers."

 

Implications and Recommendations

The study results do not suggest that offensive-discriminatory advertising is an effective marketing strategy. Most participants exposed to this content did not demonstrate more positive attitudes or behaviors than those in the control group; rather, it was a specific limited group of people who reacted positively to it. On the contrary, such advertisements can exact a significant psychological toll on individuals belonging to discriminated groups. These findings reinforce the importance of adopting an ethical approach to identity-based marketing and avoiding tactics that exploit social vulnerability for strategic profit.

In accordance with the study's findings, the researchers recommend adopting an approach that involves enforcement and clear criteria to prevent harm to various population groups.

"Enforcement against offensive and discriminatory marketing is essential to protect the well-being of individuals and foster a more egalitarian society. As a society, we must develop specific criteria for controlling offensive advertisements, as is customary in the UK, and impose significant financial penalties on those who violate them," concluded Dr. Friedmann.

 

The Research Team

The research team included: Eliran Solodoha from the Peres Academic Center, Sandra Maria Correia Loureiro from the University of Lisbon, and Lior Aviali, LBM Lab Manager, from Ben-Gurion University of the Negev.

 

Link to photo of Dr. Enav Friedmann: https://mediagraph.io/shares/33d2933032d7688b-

Photo Credit: Doron Latzer

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Journal

Psychology and Marketing

DOI

10.1002/mar.70010 

Method of Research

Experimental study

Subject of Research

People

Article Title

Disidentification: The Long-Term Effects of Offensive-Discriminatory Advertising

 

Growth or defence – How to increase potato yield

University of Potsdam

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The potato is a major crop species, here a plant with (left) and without (right) virus infection.

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Credit: Sara Fišer, NIB, Ljubljana

To study growth-defence trade-offs in the context of metabolism in crops, scientists from the Universities of Potsdam and Erlangen, Max Planck Institute of Molecular Plant Physiology, and the National Institute of Biology, Ljubljana, have generated the genome-scale metabolic model potato-GEM. The first large-scale metabolic reconstruction of its kind presents a useful resource to breed plant varieties with improved stress tolerance and high yields in the future.

With rising global population, the demand for food is growing, too. Changing environmental conditions lead to annual losses amounting to billions of euros per crop. To ensure food supply for people, crops must be made fit for the future in terms of yield and quality.

The potato is one of the most important crops worldwide. Viral infections and herbivore infestations, including Colorado potato beetle, can lead to yearly losses of up to 80 percent of crop yield. Plants attacked by these biotic stressors slow down their growth to preserve molecular resources, including production of signalling as well as defence compounds. Conversely, rapid plant growth is often accompanied by increased susceptibility to pests and pathogens, as growth is prioritised over defence. The team investigated this growth-defence trade-off using modelling approaches based on genome-scale metabolic models (GEM) of potatoes. Their findings have been published in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America.

“The large-scale metabolic reconstruction potato-GEM captures the full known secondary metabolism in this major crop species”, reports Zoran Nikoloski, Professor for Bioinformatics at the University of Potsdam and group leader at the Max Planck Institute of Molecular Plant Physiology. The mathematical model enables extensive analysis of the interplay between growth and defence processes and is an excellent platform for further development and application. “Understanding the molecular mechanisms behind plant response to stress can enhance breeding strategies and help us design crop varieties with improved stress tolerance, yield and quality”, he summarizes.

 

Link to Publication: Zrimec et al. 2025, Evaluating plant growth-defence trade-offs by modelling the interaction between primary and secondary metabolism, PNAS

 

Image: The potato is a major crop species, here a plant with (left) and without (right) virus infection. Photo: Sara Fišer, NIB, Ljubljana (CC BY-NC-SA)

Journal

Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences

DOI

10.1073/pnas.2502160122 

Method of Research

Experimental study

Subject of Research

Not applicable

Article Title

Evaluating plant growth-defence trade-offs by modelling the interaction between primary and secondary metabolism

Article Publication Date

7-Aug-2025