High-Temperature Process Organisms Capable of Producing Bioethanol Quickly and Efficiently

Integrated Genomics, Inc., a leader in microbial genomic informatics and TMO Renewables Limited, a leader in the production of ethanol from biomass, announced today that they have signed an agreement to extend their collaboration on the discovery of cellulosic bioethanol production systems.

Integrated Genomics ERGO™ platform is the leading genomic tool for microbial systems biology. Scientists at IG will work with TMO to identify pathways that can be exploited in future “upgrades” to TMO’s proprietary cellulosic ethanol process. The initial targets of the collaboration are two of IG’s proprietary membrane transport proteins that will be evaluated in TMO’s thermophilic strains.

“We have developed unique high-temperature process organisms capable of producing bioethanol quickly and efficiently from a wide diversity of sustainable cellulosic feedstocks. We are delighted to announce this extension of our collaboration with Integrated Genomics to find additional opportunities to exploit these organisms,” said Dr Kirstin Eley, External Program Manager at TMO.

Optimized for analysis of microorganisms, ERGO™ integrates biological data from genomics, biochemistry, gene expression studies, genetics and literature. Reaching beyond conventional systems for functional analysis by DNA sequence alone, Integrated Genomics' platform combines pattern-based analyses with a repertoire of comparative genomics tools for gene visualization in the contexts of regulation, expression data, phylogeny, chromosomal neighborhoods and gene fusions. ERGO™ contains more than 1350 genomes at various stages of completion, as well as the largest available collection of networked cellular pathways.