Sugarlogix Researchers Go from Fuel to Food

by Helena Tavares Kennedy (Biofuels Digest) In California, two cofounders of Sugarlogix went from engineering yeast for cellulose based fuel production and refining biofuel fermentation processes to cultivating prebiotic sugars that could be good for your gut. Their goal is to develop prebiotic sugars that feed the good probiotics in your gut, especially for people who have taken antibiotics or infants who are the ones that most need the good gut bacteria. READ MORE and MORE (BerkeleySide.com)

Excerpt from BerkeleySide.com: Kulika Chomvong and Chaeyoung Shin want the world to eat more sugar.

The two are cofounders of Sugarlogix, a startup cultivating prebiotic sugars, currently on hot desk with SkyDeck, the Cal startup accelerator.

“We make sugars that are healthier for you for healthier products,” said Chomvong. “We want to make sugars that are worth getting addicted to.”

The duo met at Cal’s Energy Biosciences institute, where they were working at separate ends of the same problem. Dr. Chomvong was engineering yeast suitable to the production of fuel from cellulose, while Dr. Shin was refining the biofuel fermentation process itself. But after graduating from their respective Ph.D. programs in 2016 — Chomvong in microbiology, Shin in chemical engineering — the two pivoted to the production of prebiotic sugars. READ MORE