Introduction to Section 6 675 Session 6 1 2 JOEL R. CHERRY AND ROBERT DICOSIMO Novozymes Biotech, Inc., Davis, CA; and E. I. DuPont de Nemours, Wilmington, DE This session consisted of 7 oral and 35 poster presentations focusing on various aspects of microbial enzyme production and performance for biomass conversions. Representing research conducted in 15 countries, the research touched on the use of enzymes for all areas of biomass conver- sion, including pretreatment, hydrolysis, and conversion to chemical feed- stocks. Applications of enzymes for the production of oleochemicals and pharmaceuticals were also described. To be commercially viable, any enzymatic process must utilize an efficient mix of process-compatible enzyme activities; the enzymes must be produced at high level from the host organism, recovered with minimal cost, and result in a minimum of unwanted side products. The hydrolysis of different biomass materials will require different enzyme mixes, and the future challenge will be to meet this requirement in a cost-effective manner. Improved methods were presented to analyze complex enzyme mixtures secreted by efficient cel- lulolytic organisms that will likely prove critical to meeting this require- ment. While the characterization of enzyme mixtures secreted by naturally occurring organisms presented in this session will likely greatly improve our understanding of how naturally occurring organisms degrade various biomass substrates, it is generally recognized that pretreated biomass may require different, synthetic mixes of enzymes from diverse organisms. Making such mixtures depends on building a toolbox of candidate enzyme activities that can work under similar process...