The Academy Lecture

Rafael Vicuña

Professor Pontificia Universidad Católica de Chile
Facultad de Ciencias Biológicas,
and Millenium Institute for Fundamental and Applied Biology,
Santiago, Chile;

Lignin biodegradation : basic research and practical applications

The Academy lecture given by Professor Rafael Vicuña will be in the domain of lignin biodegradation. His group has been involved in the field of lignin biodegradation for about twenty years. During this period, they have been mainly devoted to the characterization of the ligninolytic system of the white-rot fungus Ceriporiopsis subvermispora. They selected this basidiomycete as a model system for our studies due to its high selectivity and aggressiveness towards lignin when it grows on wood. They have described that C. subvermispora produces manganese-dependent peroxidase (MnP) and laccase. They have also identified the genes encoding these enzymes and they are presently conducting studies on the regulation of their expression. The recently released genome of the fungus Phanerochaete chrysosporium has been a valuable tool for this purpose.

In parallel with this basic research, their group has also participated in collaborative projects with Celulosa Arauco y Constitución. This Chilean company possesses about 800,000 hectares of forest plantations and produces more than 2 million tons per year of Kraft pulp. These projects have dealt with the following biotechnological applications: biopulping (pretreatment of wood with fungi prior to chemical pulping), biobleaching (treatment of brownstock pulp with enzymes to save chlorinated reagents), phytoremediation (use of plants to treat solid waste) and effluent treatment. The results obtained in some of these projects are very promising, suggesting that biotechnology applied to pulp production should lead to the development of processes that are not only more efficient from the economic standpoint, but also more friendly with the environment.

The lecturer

Rafael Vicuña has a PhD in Molecular Biology (Albert Einstein College of Medicine, New York, 1978). His fields of interest are the microbial degradation of lignin and biotechnology applied to the pulp and paper industry. For several years he has collaborated with scientists from The Forest Research Laboratory from Madison, Wisconsin (K. Kirk, D. Cullen, etc). He has been a member of the organizing committee of the last six conferences on biotechnology in the pulp and paper industry. He is a member of the Chilean Academy of Sciences and of the Pontifical Academy of Sciences, among others. He is a former President of the Chilean Society of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology and former Vice-President for Academic Affairs of Catholic University. Author of 75 scientific/technical papers and of more than 30 papers dealing with general aspects of science, he was elected Fellow of the International Academy of Wood Science in 1996.

November, 2005,