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The life and lifework of Mary Mandels - first lady of cellulase research

The upsurge in research and funding in the biomass-to-biofuels arena has attracted an enormous following of new researchers to the field of cellulases and related plant cell wall-degrading enzymes. The new era in cellulase research coincides with the passing of Mary Mandels, who established the basic concepts in this field many decades ago. Biotechnology for Biofuels honors her memory by publishing this special collection of reviews and articles, which focuses on the fungal cellulases that Mary transformed into a viable scientific area of research.

This collection of articles has not been sponsored and articles have undergone the journal’s standard peer-review process.

Submissions to this series are now closed.

  1. Different mechanistic models have been used in the literature to describe the enzymatic hydrolysis of pretreated biomass. Although these different models have been applied to different substrates, most of thes...

    Authors: Russell F Brown, Frank K Agbogbo and Mark T Holtzapple
    Citation: Biotechnology for Biofuels 2010 3:6
    Content type: Research Published on:

  2. The enzymatic hydrolysis of cellulose is still considered as one of the main limiting steps of the biological production of biofuels from lignocellulosic biomass. It is a complex multistep process, and various...

    Authors: Marie Chauve, Hugues Mathis, Delphine Huc, Dominique Casanave, Frédéric Monot and Nicolas Lopes Ferreira
    Citation: Biotechnology for Biofuels 2010 3:3
    Content type: Research Published on:

  4. Mary E H Mandels, who spearheaded the US Army's national bioconversion studies for four decades and was an early proponent of conversion of waste biomass to readily bioconvertible sugars for the production of ...

    Authors: Fred Allen, Raymond Andreotti, Douglas E Eveleigh and John Nystrom
    Citation: Biotechnology for Biofuels 2009 2:22
    Content type: Commentary Published on:

  5. This article sets forth a simple cellulase assay procedure. Cellulose is variable in nature, insoluble and resistant to enzymatic attack. As a result there have been a bevy of bewildering cellulase assays publ...

    Authors: Douglas E Eveleigh, Mary Mandels, Raymond Andreotti and Charles Roche
    Citation: Biotechnology for Biofuels 2009 2:21
    Content type: Commentary Published on:

  6. This article, 'Reflections on the United States Military 1941-1987' written by my grandmother, Mary Mandels, illustrates her passion for life. Her outreach article was considered most appropriate for publicati...

    Authors: Mary Mandels and Douglas E Eveleigh
    Citation: Biotechnology for Biofuels 2009 2:20
    Content type: Commentary Published on:

  7. Hypocrea jecorina (= Trichoderma reesei) is the main industrial source of cellulases and hemicellulases used to depolymerise plant biomass to simple sugars that are converted to chemical intermediates and biofuel...

    Authors: Christian P Kubicek, Marianna Mikus, André Schuster, Monika Schmoll and Bernhard Seiboth
    Citation: Biotechnology for Biofuels 2009 2:19
    Content type: Review Published on: