Our Mission:

The mission of the EBI is to develop and apply biological tools to address environmental concerns and discover new resources through collaborative interdisciplinary research and education.

Our Focus:

Biotechnology can be used to assess the well-being of ecosystems, transform pollutants into benign substances, generate biodegradable substances from renewable resources and develop environmentally safe manufacturing and disposal processes. EBI scientists and their student collaborators are just beginning to explore biotechnological approaches to replace conventional methods of problem-solving in many areas of biotechnology, such as:

• Contamination detection, monitoring and remediation
• Ecoremediation
• Molecular methods to study microbial community dynamics
• Effective gene delivery systems for in situ bioremediation
• Functional genomics of economically important microorganisms
• Diagnostics, epidemiology, and dispersal monitoring related to human disease agents

This type of research now has a home on the Central Coast of California. Here, at Cal Poly San Luis Obispo, the Environmental Biotechnology Institute has been founded. The EBI has already begun critical research, and has established working partnerships with Chevron Corporation, Xoma, Danisco, Applied Biosystems, the University of the Balearic Islands in Spain, the University of Portugal, National Science Foundation, California State Water Resources Control Board, City of Pismo Beach CA, BioWish Technologies Inc., W. M. Keck Foundation, Cooperages 1912, the Cal Poly Dairy Products Technology Center, and other Universities in California and the US.