PARIS and SAN FRANCISCO, Oct. 30,
2020 /PRNewswire/ -- Recombia Biosciences announces the
launch of operations in Brisbane,
California. The company aims to harness its proprietary
genome editing technologies to accelerate the development of yeast
for sustainable production of fermented ingredients. For the next
few years Recombia and Lesaffre will be joining forces in the area
of yeast strain development.
A strong commitment to innovation
With its partnership
with Recombia, Lesaffre is investing in major pioneering
technology. The ability to generate thousands of yeast strains in
parallel, combined with laboratory automation, is expected to
exponentially accelerate development of projects in the areas of
health, the environment, and energy. The partnership also signifies
Lesaffre's entry into the world of Synthetic Biology, considered to
be the major biotechnological opportunity of this decade.
"This kind of partnership
exemplifies an innovative way that industry can support and foster
progress in Biotechnology. Through collaboration with scientists
and entrepreneurs, we will be able to find new solutions, which
will be beneficial for the future, especially in health or in
environment protection," says Antoine Baule, Chief Executive Officer of
Lesaffre.
An exclusive technology
Recombia Biosciences was
founded by three Stanford University
researchers in 2019 as a spin-off from the prestigious Stanford
Genome Technology Center (SGTC). Recombia's technologies
are based upon techniques that increase the efficiency of genome
editing and enable engineering of yeast at very high throughput.
The strategic collaboration with Lesaffre aims to advance
Recombia's proprietary gene editing technologies to identify new
yeast strains, discover novel yeast physiology of industrial
relevance and optimize the production of biosourced ingredients and
biofuels.
"We are excited to be working
with Lesaffre on moving our gene editing programs forward,"
says Dr. Justin Smith, CEO of
Recombia. "We see tremendous potential to leverage our expertise
in genome editing and synthetic biology to develop new and
innovative fermentation solutions and products."
Recombia is exclusively licensing four genome engineering
technologies from Stanford University
for their work.
"While precision genome editing
has certainly advanced recently, there are still challenges,
especially in making many genetic changes in parallel," said
Dr. Bob St.Onge, COO and co-founder of Recombia Biosciences.
"Recombia's technologies enable industrial yeast strain
engineering by dramatically increasing the efficiency of
high-throughput genome editing."
St.Onge and Smith co-founded the company with Professor
Lars Steinmetz. The team has had a
long working relationship at the SGTC.
"I am very excited to see the
technologies we developed in academia applied in the industrial
sector," said Steinmetz. "The Genome Technology Center
has a long history of genomics technology development. I'm
confident Recombia will continue in the tradition of the other
successful companies that have spun out of the SGTC."
"The technology has broad
utility and can be readily applied also to the development of
non-genetically modified organisms," says
Carmen Arruda, Lesaffre R&I
Manager. "With Recombia, Lesaffre can now explore a larger space
of metabolic engineering hypotheses, develop prototype organisms at
a faster pace, accelerate the design of appropriate selections and
screenings of strains generated by classical breeding methods. We
are excited to see what the future holds."
Working together to better nourish and protect the
planet
As a global key player in the field of
fermentation, Lesaffre is committed to continuing its
investments in research and development to contribute to a safer,
healthier and more natural world by developing the potential of
micro-organisms, such as yeasts or beneficial bacteria.
More information about Recombia Biosciences at
www.recombia.com
More information about Lesaffre at www.lesaffre.com
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SOURCE Recombia Biosciences