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Chemistry Guest Lecture on Cellulose Innovation, Feb. 6
Tuesday, January 28, 2014
Delaware State University’s Department of Chemistry will host a Feb. 6 guest lecture by Dr. Stephen Roth of United Catalyst LLC, who will speak on the topic of “Enzymatic
Hydrolysis Without Enzymes.”
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Dr. Stephen Roth
The guest lecture will be held at 11 a.m. Thursday, Feb. 6 in Room 323 of the Mishoe Science Center South. The event – which is part of the department’s 2014 Sustainable Chemistry Seminar Series – is free and open to the public.
Dr. Roth and his company are working to conquer the major cost obstacle of transforming cellulose – a significant energy source for humans – into its glucose subunits on a large scale. United Catalyst is developing Cellulose-Hydrolyzing Imprinted Polymers (CHIPs), which preliminary data suggests can outperform traditional enzymes in converting cellulosic biomass to glucose at commercial scales.
Dr. Roth is the principal founder and chief science officer of United Catalyst, and is an academic enzymologist specializing in synthesis and hydrolysis of complex carbohydrates. After his academia years at John Hopkins University and the University of Pennsylvania, Dr. Roth left higher education to establish Neose Technologies; serving as CEO and chairman, he took the company public in 1996. After retiring from Neose, he later became CEO of Immune Controls Inc. in 2003, which he led until his retirement from that company in 2011.
In 2011, he founded United Catalyst LLC.