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Nancy N Nichols

Research Microbiologist

Biography and Research

Nancy N. Nichols – Research Microbiologist

Nancy Nichols is part of a Bioenergy Research team developing improved technologies for converting agricultural commodities to fuels and other value-added products. Dr. Nichols holds a Ph.D. in microbiology from the University of Iowa and a B.A. in biology from Augustana University, and conducted postdoctoral research to discover how microbes detect, take up, and metabolize aromatic compounds. At ARS-NCAUR, she engineered bacterial strains capable of making ethanol from the mixtures of sugars that are present in fibrous plant material, and led a team in discovery of new microbes that can be used in the conversion of biomass to sugars. Her research employs microbiological and molecular methods to develop microbes that detoxify biomass sugars, allowing the sugars to be efficiently converted to fuels and chemicals. Dr. Nichols is also an adjunct faculty member in the School of Biological Sciences at Illinois State University.

Publications Indexed by Scopus

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