West, Thomas P.
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Phone: (605) 688-5469
Fax : (605) 688-6295
E mail Dr. Thomas West
Education
• BA, 1974, Purdue University
• MS 1976, Ph.D. 1980, Texas A&M University
Postdoctoral Appointments
• Michigan State University
• University of Arizona
• Boston College
Honors and Recognition
• NIH Postdoctoral Fellow 1980-81, 1982-83
• NCI Postdoctoral Fellow 1981-82
External Funding
• NIH, USDA, NSF, Pfizer Consumer Healthcare, South Dakota Corn Utilization Council.
My laboratory is studying several research areas. One is exploring the conversion of biomass into specialty chemicals. The possibility of utilizing corn distillers' grains as a substrate for fungal bioconversion to citric acid and fumaric acid is being investigated. The yeast bioconversion of hydrolyzed switchgrass to xylitol is also being analyzed. My laboratory is also studying the production of commercially valuable complex polysaccharides. At present, my laboratory is primarily conducting research examining strain improvement as well as the optimal culture conditions which promote the synthesis of the microbial polysaccharide curdlan on corn processing coproducts. Curdlan is an alkali-soluble polysaccharide synthesized by Agrobacterium sp. that is commercially produced in the U.S. This polysaccharide has a number of industrial applications as a thickening agent. The overall goal is to develop a process for the large-scale commercial production of these polysaccharides using selected mutant strains. Lastly, I am interested in examining the regulation of enzymes involved in pyrimidine metabolism from species of Pseudomonas. My laboratory has shown that pyrimidine biosynthesis and pyrimidine base catabolism are regulated at the level of enzyme synthesis in species of Pseudomonas. One pyrimidine base catabolic enzyme, called dihydropyrimidinase, is being studied for its possible industrial use in the production of amino acids from hydantoins.
Recent Publications
West, T.P., 2005, Improved polysaccharide production using strain improvement. Chapter 17 in J.-L Barredo (ed.) Microbial Processes and Products, pp. 301-312. Humana Press Inc., Totawa, NJ.
West, T.P.; Strohfus, B., Xie, G., 2004, Fungal citric acid production on distillers grains. Current Trends in Microbiology, 1, 97-102.
West, T.P., 2004, Pyrimidine nucleotide synthesis in Pseudomonas citronellolis. Can. J. Microbiol., 50, 455-459.
West, T.P., 2003, Effect of temperature on bacterial gellan production. World J. Microbiol. Biotechnol., 19, 649-652.
West, T.P. 2002, Isolation of a mutant strain of Pseudomonas sp. ATCC 31461 exhibiting elevated polysaccharide production, J. Ind. Microbiol. Biotechnol., 29, 185-188.
Santiago, M.F.; West, T.P., 2002, Control of pyrimidine formation in Pseudomonas putida ATCC 17536. Can J. Microbiol., 48, 1076-1081.
Haugaard, L.E.; West, T.P., 2002, Pyrimidine biosynthesis in Pseudomonas oleovorans, J. Appl. Microbiol., 92, 517-525.
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