Amyris is Awarded $8 million DARPA Contract under ‘Living Foundries’ Program
(Amyris) Amyris to develop improved DNA assembly and integration across biological platforms
Amyris, Inc. announced today (June 12, 2012) it has been awarded a contract from the U.S. Department of Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) to develop tools that can expand the scope of Amyris’s industrial synthetic biology technology platform across various biological platforms and cell types. The contract is worth approximately $8 million in funds to Amyris, conditioned on meeting certain technical milestones in connection with the DARPA’s Living Foundries research program.
“Amyris’s cutting edge technology platform has been used to produce a life-saving anti-malarial drug as well as renewable fuels and chemicals. In support of DARPA’s ‘Living Foundries’ program, we will leverage our technology expertise to develop improved DNA assembly and rapid integration across complex biological platforms,” said John Melo, Amyris President & CEO.
In September 2011, DARPA published a Broad Agency Announcement to competitively solicit “innovative proposals to develop new tools, technologies and methodologies to transform biology into an engineering practice, speeding the biological design-build-test cycle and expanding the complexity of systems that can be engineered,” according to DARPA’s Living Foundries program documents online.
About Amyris, Inc. Amyris is an integrated renewable products company focused on providing sustainable alternatives to a broad range of petroleum-sourced products. Amyris uses its industrial synthetic biology platform to convert plant sugars into a variety of hydrocarbon molecules – flexible building blocks that can be used in a wide range of products. Amyris is commercializing these products both as No Compromise® renewable ingredients in cosmetics, flavors and fragrances, polymers, lubricants and consumer products, and also as No Compromise renewable diesel and jet fuel. Amyris Brasil Ltda., a subsidiary of Amyris, oversees the establishment and expansion of Amyris’s production in Brazil. More information about Amyris is available at www.amyris.com.
