AFINGEN celebrates DOE Joint BioEnergy Institute: JBEI’s Elite 100/500 Club

Source: https://newscenter.lbl.gov/2015/10/02/jbei-joins-elite-100500-club/

DOE’s Joint BioEnergy Institute has Filed for 100 Patents and Published 500 Scientific Papers.  Companies that have licensed JBEI technologies include Lygos, which is using synthetic biology techniques to produce new chemical compounds, TeselaGen, which is building a bioCAD/CAM rapid prototyping system for biology, and, most recently, AFINGEN, which is using a new discovery from JBEI called “artificial positive feedback loop,” or APFL, to manipulate the metabolic pathways of plants for the production of advanced biofuels and other chemical products now being made from petroleum. “AFINGEN’s goal is to improve beneficial bioenergy traits in eukaryotic organisms and APFL will help us achieve this goal,” says Ai Oikawa, AFINGEN’s Managing Director. “JBEI’s fundamental scientific discoveries, such as APFL, are a critical conduit for technology transfer.” Two years ago, DOE renewed JBEI’s funding at the rate of $25 million annually through 2018. Then Secretary of Energy Steven Chu charged JBEI and the other BRCs with deploying innovative approaches and technologies to “move the biofuels industry forward and grow our economy while reducing our reliance on foreign oil.” Through its uniquely nimble and flexible approach to research and its hallmark entrepreneurial and collaborative spirit, JBEI has been meeting and will continue to meet that charge, promises CEO Keasling. “Even though our metrics are excellent, they still don’t do justice to the impact JBEI has had and will continue to have both in basic science as well as the application of that science,” Keasling says. “We’re here to solve one of the most important problems of our time, reducing the impact of transportation on the environment.”

DOE’s Joint BioEnergy Institute at EmeryStation East in Emeryville, CA.