Eastern Regional Research Center

Dr. Sevim Erhan, Center Director
Eastern Regional Research Center, NAA, ARS, USDA
600 East Mermaid Lane, Wyndmoor, Pennsylvania  19038
Phone:  (215) 233-6400   FAX:  (215) 233-6777

In the Spotlight Fast Pyrolysis ARS Researchers Team Up with Siemens to Make Bio-Based Oil The fast pyrolysis reactor used by research scientists at the Agricultural Research Service, Eastern Regional Research Center in Wyndmoor, PA, has a Siemens PCS7 control system, on the left of the reactor, to control pressures, temperatures, biomass weight, feed speed and the pyrolysis reaction. Research scientists led Dr. Akwasi Boateng at the Agriculture Research Service (ARS), Eastern Regional Research Center (215-233-6493) in Wyndmoor, PA, are producing a renewable bio-oil using an innovative fast pyrolysis method that heats biomass feedstocks in the absence of oxygen. Read the full article in this pdf file. ___________________________________ Farmers See Latest in Bioenergy Research at USDA Lab Marilyn Hershey, Southeastern Pa. Correspondent WYNDMOOR, Pa. - Montgomery County Farm Bureau farmers, energy specialists, and additional participating farmers earlier this month met here at USDA's Eastern Regional Research Center to learn about bioenergy developments and tour the research facilities. The Eastern Regional Research Center (ERRC) was built in 1940 and is the largest USDA facility in the country.  According to Kevin Hicks, research leader, the center employs 290 occupants, 173 of which are award-winning scientists.  The research team is working on 24 individual research projects. "Through research, common sense, and smart people," Hicks said the goal of "bring together food, feed, fuel, and fiber from farms," can be attained. Click here to read the full article from Lancaster Farming. ___________________________________ Brenner Discusses USDA Research, Technology The Entrepreneur by Marc Kramer, The Bulletin Published:  Sunday, September 13, 2009 Few people know that the Department of Agriculture is one of the leading governmental research organizations with a long history of commercializing what is developed in its labs and jointly. Dr. Rick Brenner, who was named the Assistant Administrator in ARS for Technology Transfer in October 2004 and represents the Secretary of Agriculture on issues pertaining to management of intellectual property arising from USDA research, and has the delegated authority for licensing inventions developed through intramual research in any of the USDA agencies, provides insights into the enormous impact his agency has on the economy of the country. Read the full article in this pdf file. ___________________________________ From Lubricants to Packaging Materials:  ARS Scientists Just Say "No" to Petroleum At the NCAUR lab in Peoria, chemist Sevim Erhan (now center director at the Eastern Regional Research Center in Wyndmoor, Pennsylvania) formulates a biodegradable lubricant using an ARS patented biobased antiwear additive. (D1643-1) Screech! Few sounds are more nerve-wracking than the scraping of metal on metal. It’s the job of lubricants to prevent that annoying noise by making sure that—when metal touches metal—everything moves smoothly and quietly. Machines that have moving parts—your car’s engine or the hydraulic pump of a huge earthmover, for instance—almost always require lubricants. Most lubricants are made of so-called “base oil” that’s blended with additives to boost performance. In the United States, the demand for additives, already at nearly 2 billion pounds a year, is expected to increase at a respectable 2 percent a year for the next 5 years. That’s why Sevim Z. Erhan and colleagues have developed a new process for making biobased additives, ones suitable for use in formulating greases; crankcase, two-cycle, and marine engine oils; and hydraulic, transmission, and drilling fluids. Read all about it in the September 2009 issue of Agricultural Research Magazine. ___________________________________ USDA Secretary Tom Vilsack visits ERRC Secretary Vilsack visited the Eastern Regional Research Center, NAA, ARS, USDA in Wyndmoor PA on Thursday, July 23, 2009 to review the Center’s pioneering research programs in sustainable bioenergy, food safety, and health-promoting foods.  Accompanying the Secretary was Deputy Undersecretary for Rural Development Cheryl Cook.  The Secretary addressed the entire Center staff at the end of the visit and thanked the staff for helping him achieve his objectives in rural development, sustainable agricultural bioenergy, obesity prevention, food safety and security and for making USDA effective and relevant “everyday and everyway.” Click hereto see photos from the event. ___________________________________ BioEnergy Bridge TMPartnership Robert Wallace, Executive Director of Penn State University's BioEnergy Bridge, visits ERRC to describe formation of a state-wide bioenergy research consortium and to invite ERRC to join.  His seminar can be viewed here. ________________________________________ New Methods for Ensuring Food Safety Microbiologist George Paoli inspects antibody-coated magnetic beads and biologist Chandi Wijey analyzes DNA samples in their efforts to develop immunological, microbiological, and genetic-based methdos for detection of Yersinia pestis in food.  (D1452-1) Good news for fans of raw cookie dough.  Researchers at ARS's Eastern Rgional Research Center (ERRC) in Wyndmoor, Pennsylvania, have filed a patent on technology that can further protect pasteurized liquid eggs from food safety threats.  These threats include both naturally occurring spoilage bacteria and pathogens such as Salmonella enteritidis, the primary cause of egg-related foodborne illness in the United States.  The technology has also been successfully applied to milk. But don't go running for that dough just yet.  The U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) still cautions against consuming any raw, unpasteurized eggs or products that contain them. Read all about it in the May-June 2009 issue of Agricultural Research Magazine. ________________________________________ DPPRU Molecular Modeling Promotes Milk Protein Innovation Alpha S2-Casein (Alpha S2-CN) comprises up to 10% of the casein fraction in bovine milk.   The role of Alpha S2-CN in milk and dairy products has not been studied in detail in part due to a lack of structural information on the molecule. Interest in the utilization of this molecule in dairy products and nutrition has been renewed by work in three areas: biological activity via potentially biologically active peptides, functionality in cheeses and products, and nutrition in terms of calcium uptake. To help clarify the behavior of Alpha S2-CN in its structure-function relationships in milk and its possible applications in dairy products, ERRC scientists have produced a working three dimensional (3D) molecular model for this casein (J. Dairy Science92:1338, 2009).   This effort completes the work on molecular modeling of the caseins.   Molecular models for this protein and for the other three major caseins (Alpha S1-CN β-CN and κ-CN) in pdb format may be downloadedfrom the DPPRU site. ________________________________________ Career Day Please click hereto view photos from the 2009 ERRC Career Day, April 23 and 24. Note:  Password needed ________________________________________ Dairy Team-Up Leverages Research Towards Healthy Ingredients Dairy Management Inc., the National Dairy Council, and the Department of Defense Combat Feeding Program-Natick Soldier Research, Development and Engineering Center, have partnered with USDA-ARS on a new National Dairy Research Plan, a roadmap for dairy research.  The researchers of the Dairy Processing and Products Research Unit, USDA/ARS/ERRC, will collaborate to develop new milk ingredients, new technologies that enhance the health, safety and functionality of dairy products, and on methods to extend shelf-life. Click hereto read the article (PDF). ___________________________________ ERRC Scientists Partners in Successful Development of New Method for Biodiesel Production from Non-Food Feedstock As the use of biodiesel, the renewable and domestically produced replacement for petroleum diesel fuel, expands worldwide, new feedstock supplies are needed to meet increasing demand.  The use of low cost starting materials is particularly interesting, since feedstock cost can constitute 80% of overall production cost when high value, edible fats and oils are used to produce biodiesel. Working in collaboration with BlackGold Biofuels, ERRC researchers have contributed to the successful development of a robust production process that converts trap grease, a low-value waste fat, to high quality biodiesel.  The accompanying article describes the announcement by the city of San Francisco, CA of its issuance of a contract to BlackGold for the first production scale implementation of its technology. Click hereto read the article (PDF). ___________________________________  Guayule Go Native with this Promising Biofuel - and Biomedical - Crop Guayule (K1559-3) Perhaps the single most valuable gift the desert-dwelling guayule plant offers us is its superb natural latex. The white, rubber-rich substance, extracted and purified from this southwestern U.S. native shrub (Parthenium argentatum), is ideal for making high-quality gloves, medical devices, and other in-demand natural rubber products. Importantly, latex from guayule (pronounced why-YOU-lee) is free of the proteins responsible for the sometimes-deadly latex allergies caused by the most widely used natural-rubber source, the rubber tree, Hevea brasiliensis. But guayule may also prove to be an economical, environmentally friendly source of yet another prized commodity: energy. That energy can be made from the ground-up stems and branches, called “bagasse,” that are left after their latex has been removed. Read all about it in the February 2009 issue of Agricultural Research Magazine. ___________________________________ To learn more click here!

Upcoming Events       November 9 - December 14:  Health Benefit Open Season November 26 - Center closed for the Thanksgiving holiday December 7 - Seminar:  "Isolation and characterization of pectic polysaccharides from natural sources" presented by Dr. Djuraboy KH. Khalikov, Director and Proffessor of Chemistry Institute, Tajikistan Academy of Sciences; to be held in Room 2006 at 10 am December 8 - Seminar:  "Creating a sustainable biofuels infrastructure" presented by Dr. Jennifer Holmgren, General Manager, Renewable Energy and Chemicals Business Unit, UOP LLC, Des Plaines; to be held in Room 2006 at 10:30 am December 15  - ERRC's Holiday Open House held in the Auditorium from 2 pm to 4 pm 10 Most Recent Publications Additional Publications - We have 7600+ publications online that you can view and print. The following publications are not yet online.  To request a reprint, please email Robert.Downs@ars.usda.gov with your name, address, and reprint number.   REPRINT TITLE AUTHOR 8133 Meat & bone meal extract and gelatin as renewable flocculants G.J. Piazza and R.A. Garcia 8132 Performance comparison of a fliCh7 real-time PCR assay with an H7 latex agglutination test for confirmation of the H type of Escherichia coli O157:H7 N. Narang, P.M. Fratamico, G. Tillman, K. Pupedis, and W.C. Cray, Jr. 8131 Comparison of aluminum thermal-death-time disks with a pilot-scale pasteurizer on the thermal inactivation of Escherichia coli K12 in apple cider H.-G. Yuk, D.J. Geveke, H.Q. Zhang, and T.Z. Jin 8130 Altered composition of Ralstonia eutropha poly(hydroxyalkanoate) through expression of PHA synthase from Allochromatium vinosum ATCC 35206 K.K. Aneja, R.D. Ashby, and D.K.Y. Solaiman 8129 SnTox3 acts in effector triggered susceptibility to induce disease on wheat carrying the Snn3 gene Z. Liu, J.D. Faris, R.P. Oliver, K.-C. Tan, P.S. Solomon, M.C. McDonald, B.A. McDonald, A. Nunez, S. Lu, J.B. Rasmussen, and T.L. Friesen 8128 Estolides: from structure and function to structured and functionalized J.A. Zerkowski 8127 Dairy innovations over the past 100 years M.H. Tunick 8126 One hundred years of the division of agricultural and food chemistry M.H. Tunick and C.J. Brine 8125 The structure of high-methoxyl sugar acid gels of citrus pectin as determined by AFM M.L. Fishman and P.H. Cooke 8124 Analysis of oxytetracycline residue in salmon muscle using a portable analyzer based on EuIII luminescence G. Chen and G. Liu

USDA , ARS , NAA , ERRC is committed to making its web sites accessible to all USDA customers and employees. All of the agency web sites are undergoing review and redesign as necessary to ensure that they meet or exceed the requirements of Section 508 of the Rehabilitation Act of 1973. Many of our web sites currently meet the Section 508 accessibility standards. Furthermore, USDA, ARS, NAA, ERRC  continues to work on making all web sites accessible. Thank you very much for your patience through this redesign process. If you have any comments or suggestions for improvement, please contact the Web Master of this page.

Questions or Comments to Webmaster Dina.Grimes@ars.usda.gov