Metabolix Secures UCLA Engineering ARPA-E Grant for Improving the Productivity of Making Biofuels in Plants
December 06 2012 - 9:00AM
Business Wire
Metabolix, Inc. (NASDAQ: MBLX), an innovation-driven bioscience
company focused on delivering sustainable solutions for plastics,
chemicals and energy, today announced that it has received a
subaward under the Advanced Research Projects Agency – Energy
(ARPA-E) to work with the UCLA Henry Samueli School of Engineering
and Applied Science to redesign carbon fixation pathways to
increase the efficiency of capturing energy from sunlight. This is
the third grant awarded to Metabolix in 2012 for leading-edge crop
research targeting multi-gene expression and transformation of
plants, and builds upon its years of experience in transforming
plants for bio-product production. Funding from these three grants
will total nearly $1 million and will run through 2014.
Under the UCLA Engineering ARPA-E grant, Metabolix researchers
will work closely with Professor James Liao, the Ralph M. Parsons
Foundation professor and chair in the department of chemical and
biomolecular engineering and a recent Presidential Green Chemistry
Challenge Award recipient, to engineer alternate biochemical
pathways for carbon fixation into the crop plant, camelina.
Metabolix’s multi-gene expression technology and its significant
prior work in camelina will help increase the number of new traits
expressed in each plant, which is expected to produce new pathways
to a greater variety of liquid fuels from camelina and other
plants. Specifically, the ARPA-E grant focuses on carbon fixation,
which is the key process that plants use to convert carbon dioxide
(CO2) from the atmosphere into higher energy molecules (such as
sugars) using energy from the sun. Metabolix will work with UCLA
Engineering to investigate an alternative biochemical pathway that
theoretically could allow a plant to capture twice as much CO2
using the same amount of light, with the end goal of improving the
productivity of both food and fuel crops.
“Metabolix brings a unique set of capabilities and experience as
well as a proven track record of success in plant science to our
ARPA-E project,” said Dr. Liao. “With its proven capability to
engineer a variety of crop plants for the production of industrial
products, Metabolix will be a valuable partner in our work to
increase carbon fixation in plants and enable the production of a
greater variety of liquid fuels in camelina and other plants. We
look forward to working with Metabolix in our quest to generate
more cost-effective biofuels.”
“We are delighted that another of our project teams has chosen
to work with Metabolix to move PETRO's high-performance, dedicated
energy crops closer to realization,” says ARPA-E Program Director
Dr. Jonathan Burbaum. “If successful, such crops promise to provide
a viable, domestic and renewable alternative to imported
petroleum.”
The UCLA Engineering ARPA-E grant is the third crops science
grant awarded to Metabolix in 2012. In January, the Company
initiated work on an ARPA-E-funded project to work with the
University of Massachusetts (UMass) Amherst to help increase the
natural ability of camelina to produce oils and add the production
of energy-dense terpene molecules that can be easily converted into
liquid fuels. In April, Metabolix Oilseeds, a wholly owned
subsidiary of Metabolix, was awarded a grant for the development of
capacity building for commercial-scale polyhydroxybutyrate
(PHB)-producing camelina.
“Driving a growing interest in our crops science program is the
interest from brand owners, consumers and government organizations
for developing renewable, non-petroleum-based liquid fuels,” said
Dr. Oliver Peoples, chief scientific officer and vice president,
research at Metabolix. “Metabolix is a pioneer in plant science and
we have a deep history working with leading institutions to
successfully further the development of technologies to enhance the
productivity of crops. We look forward to applying our strong
capabilities in crop science to the work with UCLA Engineering to
improve the carbon fixation pathways of camelina and produce new
routes to biofuels.”
About Metabolix
Metabolix, Inc. is an innovation-driven bioscience company
delivering sustainable solutions to the plastics, chemicals and
energy industries. Metabolix is developing and commercializing
MirelTM and Mvera,TM a family of high-performance bioplastics which
are biobased and biodegradable alternatives to many petroleum-based
plastics. Metabolix’s biobased chemicals platform utilizes its
novel “FAST” recovery process to enable the production of
cost-effective, “drop-in” replacements for petroleum-based
industrial chemicals. Metabolix is also developing a platform for
co-producing plastics, chemicals and energy from crops. Metabolix
has established an industry-leading intellectual property portfolio
that, together with its knowledge of advanced industrial practice,
provides a foundation for industry collaborations.
For more information, please visit www.metabolix.com.
(MBLX-G)
Safe Harbor for Forward-Looking Statements
This press release contains forward-looking statements which are
made pursuant to the safe harbor provisions of Section 27A of the
Securities Act of 1933, as amended, and Section 21E of the
Securities Exchange Act of 1934, as amended. The forward-looking
statements in this release do not constitute guarantees of future
performance. Investors are cautioned that statements in this press
release which are not strictly historical statements, including,
without limitation, statements regarding the expected results of
Metabolix research programs, constitute forward-looking statements.
Such forward-looking statements are subject to a number of risks
and uncertainties that could cause actual results to differ
materially from those anticipated and are detailed in Metabolix's
filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission. Metabolix
assumes no obligation to update any forward-looking information
contained in this press release or with respect to the
announcements described herein.
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