CONNECT Recognizes Genomatica with the Most Innovative New Product Award
Genomatica has won the CONNECT Most Innovative New Product Award in the Clean Technology category. Genomatica’s biotechnological innovations have lead to economically efficient and environmentally friendly manufacturing processes for creating the basic chemicals and ingredients that constitute nearly all of our consumer and industrial products. San Diego’s premier non-profit entrepreneur organization, CONNECT, has recognized Genomatica’s innovations with their annual Most Innovative New Product Award. Earlier in the year, Genomatica had been recognized by the national Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) organization with the Presidential Green Chemistry Challenge Award, the highest honor in green chemistry.
Genomatica’s technology involves engineering microorganisms that in turn produce basic chemical products from renewable feedstocks such as conventional sugars, sugars from cellulosic biomass (non-edible parts of plants), and syngas (waste). Using computational and systems biology, Genomatica has been able to design microorganisms, e.g., E. Coli, that have optimal cellular pathways for the efficient conversion of feedstock to the basic chemicals needed in many consumer and industrial products. UCSD Professor Bernhard Palsson of Bioengineering, a member of IEM and co-founder of Genomatica, developed many of these computational techniques that Genomatica has used. Professor Palsson has been at UCSD since 1995 and has numerous publications and patents in systems biology, including patents that have been licensed to Genomatica.
Genomatica’s production process is not only cheaper for manufacturing the chemicals used in our everyday products, but also has a much smaller environmental footprint than conventional methods. Dr. Christophe Schilling, a co-founder and CEO of Genomatica, recently wrote that “as the American chemical industry moves from petro-based chemicals toward renewable-based sustainable chemicals, it offers a way forward with more domestic jobs, less reliance on foreign fossil fuels and a more responsible, environmentally aware consumer culture. Sustainable chemical manufacturing will let the industry keep and build more plants in the United States, and use low-cost renewable feedstocks instead of moving production to oil- and gas-rich countries.”
In addition to being recognized by CONNECT and the EPA, Genomatica has been named as one of the big “10 Big Green Ideas” by Newsweek and has also been featured on Forbes.
For more information on Genomatica, see: http://www.genomatica.com/
For more information on CONNECT, see: http://www.connect.org/