Microorganisms have been evolving and adapting to environmental pressure for over a billion years. Consequently, microorganisms are a tremendous source of enzymes and molecular diversity. This is reflected in the fact that majority of commercial biological processes for making biofuels, drugs, chemicals, and pharmaceutical molecules, involve use of microbial enzymes. Over the last two years, CBB has collected over 2,000 microorganisms which are known to produce an array of industrially relevant enzymes. More recently, about 40,000 microbial strains and 35,000 diverse soil samples from virtually every known ecology on the planet, were transferred to CBB by Kemin Industries, Inc. These microorganisms include bacteria, actinomycetes, and fungi (see bar chart below) and are available for screening for various enzyme applications including secondary metabolites, production of chemicals, resolution of racemic mixtures, biofuel applications, environmental assessment of compounds, recruiting genes for metabolic engineering, etc. Some of the microorganisms were isolated from soil samples collected prior to the “Rio Treaty” and therefore they are “royalty-free”. Collectively, these represent the largest open resource for microbial and soil-based screening available at one place.

CBB microbial screening and enzyme discovery services include:

• Providing broths for secondary metabolite screening for pharmaceutical and agricultural applications
• Screening microorganisms for new and novel enzyme activities
• Screening a library of cloned enzymes (mostly dioxygenases) for various applications
• Screening and recruitment of novel genes for metabolic engineering
• Screening for biofuel applications, including microbes for cellulose/lignin hydrolysis and using aromatics for high value chemicals

The discovery can be coupled to cloning genes as necessary, large scale production of enzymes, process development, and evaluation of economics. Please contact us for more information.