X-Crobes: Kuraray Invests in Amyris, What’s Next for Synth-Bio and Performance Molecules?

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April 2, 2014

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by Jim Lane (Biofuels Digest) … In California, Amyris and Kuraray announced the expansion and extension of their ongoing collaboration in high performance polymers using Biofene, Amyris’s brand of renewable farnesene.
Amyris and Kuraray launched the collaboration in 2011 with an initial focus on using Biofene-based polymers to replace petroleum-derived feedstocks in tires. During this time, Kuraray developed Biofene-based liquid rubber that reacts with tire rubber more easily than traditional materials and strengthens adhesion of rubber components to improve tire shape, stability, and performance.
What’s that? A mere performance polymer made from modified yeast, you say?
No, it’s an X-Crobe unveiling its microscopic superpowers.
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Butadiene is a chemical building block used to manufacture synthetic rubber, nylon, latices, ABS plastics and other polymers.
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Last week in New York, researchers at New York University have created the first ever yeast chromosome using synthetic biology. The new yeast cell, that was created by replacing original chromosomes with synthetic ones, was observed to reproduce. More than 50,000 changes were made to the DNA and researchers can now more easily manipulate the yeast to do what they want, including potentially making better biofuels.
Over the last five years, scientists have built bacterial chromosomes and viral DNA, but this is the first report of an entire eukaryotic chromosome, the threadlike structure that carries genes in the nucleus of all plant and animal cells, built from scratch.
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Using the scrambling technique, researchers say they will be able to more quickly develop synthetic strains of yeast that could be used in the manufacture of rare medicines, such as artemisinin for malaria, or in the production of certain vaccines, including the vaccine for hepatitis B, which is derived from yeast. Synthetic yeast, they say, could also be used to bolster development of more efficient biofuels, such as alcohol, butanol, and biodiesel.
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Here’s what we have: a vital but volatile commodity — out of control, in the view of its customers. Amyris bringing forward a platform in yeast fermentation, using a modified organism, that offers an alternative with unique performance properties that improve tire shape, stability, and performance. Future developments on the horizon from the likes of LanzaTech, Global Bioenergies, Genomatica and IFP. READ MORE and MORE (Biodiesel Magazine)

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