UCI AND CODA GENOMICS COLLABORATE ON $1.6 MM UC DISCOVERY GRANT TO RE-ENGINEER YEAST FOR BIOFUEL PRODUCTION

 

Laguna Hills, CA September 5, 2007 — Scientists at UC Irvine and CODA Genomics, an Orange County company that provides Protein Translation Engineering™ solutions, are working to turn a common yeast strain into an efficient producer of ethanol, an environmentally cleaner fuel.

A Saccharomyces yeast strain commonly used in the production of beer, wine and bread, has the potential to turn biomass – switchgrass, hemp, corn, wood and other natural materials – efficiently into ethanol. The collaboration will focus on the metabolic engineering of a new yeast strain which could greatly increase the output and efficiency of this biomass to ethanol conversion process, thus helping to meet the nation’s increasing thirst for energy.

The $1.6MM collaboration is sponsored by CODA with matching funds from a UC Discovery Grant. The multidisciplinary research program encompasses a team of UCI researchers in the schools of information and computer sciences, engineering and medicine, as well as CODA Genomics, which was spun off in 2005 from research conducted at UCI.

Ethanol is produced by Saccharomyces as a byproduct when it ferments sugars found in plant materials. While native yeast strains readily process glucose, they do not contain the necessary enzymes to process other sugars that are components of biomass, such as xylose and arabinose. The bioengineered version will produce enzymes that can help it digest these and other sugars with equal ease, maximizing its production of ethanol.

“Ethanol could be part of the answer to the U.S.’s dependence on fossil fuels,” said G. Wesley Hatfield, principal investigator on the grant and a co-founder of CODA Genomics. “While there are currently yeast strains that can make ethanol from biomass, the existing process is very expensive and inefficient. We’re trying to build a better yeast strain – one that can produce more ethanol from the same amount of biomass by breaking it down efficiently.”

Even when yeast produce the necessary enzymes, inefficiencies in certain metabolic pathways can slow the process down. Pierre Baldi, director of the UCI Institute for Genomics and Bioinformatics (IGB) and one of the project’s co-principal investigators, is computationally “optimizing” key enzymes to increase their efficiency. With computer algorithms, he is engineering compatibility of these key enzymes with various co-factors – the small molecules that help enzymes work.

“Given the current energy crisis and global warming concerns, we are particularly pleased with this award," said Baldi, who is also Chancellor’s Professor in UCI’s Donald Bren School of Information and Computer Science.

Also involved in this multidisciplinary research are IGB’s Computational Biology Research Laboratory (CBRL) in the California Institute for Telecommunications and Information Technology, and the labs of professors Suzanne Sandmeyer (biological chemistry) and Nancy Da Silva ( biochemical engineering).

CBRL scientists perform the computation, gene design and gene assembly of the yeast proteins using CODA’s technology. Sandmeyer, a yeast molecular biologist, inserts the proteins into the yeast genome, ensuring the enzymes’ stability and ability to function. Da Silva, a chemical engineer, will optimize fermentation conditions to maximize ethanol production.

“The CODA technology is already showing commercial success in theapeutic protein markets,” said Dr. Robert Molinari, CEO of CODA Genomics. “Now we are going to apply CODA’s unique approach to solve a large national problem.

About the University of California, Irvine: The University of California, Irvine is a top-ranked university dedicated to research, scholarship and community service. Founded in 1965, UCI is among the fastest-growing University of California campuses, with more than 25,000 undergraduate and graduate students and about 1,400 faculty members. The second-largest employer in dynamic Orange County, UCI contributes an annual economic impact of $3.7 billion. For more UCI news, visit
www.today.uci.edu.

About CODA Genomics, Inc.: CODA Genomics, Inc. is a protein Translation Engineering company focused on proprietary, patented approaches to express proteins in a variety of cell organisms. This unique technology enabled by synthetic biology is used to solve protein expression problems. For more CODA information, visit www.codagenomics.com.