Page 165 - CW E-Magazine (9-1-2024)

News from Abroad

TACKLING FOREVER CHEMICALS
GreenLab joins forces with Ginkgo to develop

enzyme to break down PFAS

GreenLab, an emerging plant-bio- capital and infrastructure. After the Codebase, and ultra-high throughput
technology company producing com- protein of interest is extracted from the screening methods as we seek to find a
plex proteins in corn, has announced kernel with minimal waste, most of the novel enzyme fit for GreenLab to ad-
a partnership with Ginkgo Bioworks, corn used will then proceed along the dress this globally important enzymo-
the US biotech firm building a platform existing value chain, including food, logical problem,” said Ms. Sneha Srikri-
for cell programming and biosecurity. feed or fuel. GreenLab already has two shnan, Director Business Development
GreenLab is developing a product with proteins in commercial production, in- and Product Lead, Proteins, Ginkgo.
the purpose of degrading PFAS and cluding manganese peroxidase (a multi-
will leverage Ginkgo Enzyme Services purpose environmental remediation Allonnia, another US-based biotech
to discover a novel enzyme of critical solution) and brazzein (which delivers company dedicated to extracting value
importance for use in this application. a high-intensity sweetness). from waste, plans to work with Ginkgo
and GreenLab to help discover a novel
PFAS, short for “per- and polyfluoro- Ginkgo will lead an metagenomic enzyme to combat PFAS, and will work
alkyl substances”, describes a group of discovery campaign leveraging its vast with GreenLab as a commercial partner
manufactured chemicals commonly used metagenomic database to identify a deploying the enzyme in their end-to-
in non-stick and water-proofing agents library of PFAS-degrading enzymes. end PFAS solution. The company has
for decades. They bear the moniker of Ginkgo will then use advanced ultra- already introduced a PFAS separation
‘forever chemicals’ owing to their endur- high throughput screening methods to and concentration solution with Epoc
ing nature and inability to break down identify unique enzymes with desired Enviro’s SAFF unit, a sustainable PFAS
in the environment. They are associated activity and transfer the best candidates remediation technology. Integrating a
with many dangerous health effects, in- to GreenLab. In later stages of this colla- process for the biodegradation of PFAS
cluding cancer, reproductive and immune boration, Ginkgo will further engage in concentrate discovered through this
system harm, and other diseases. PFAS AI-enabled enzyme engineering to fur- project into Allonnia’s solution would
degradation is a significantly complex ther improve on the discovered enzyme. represent a breakthrough closed-loop
problem, and currently no PFAS-de- approach. Additionally, Allonnia be-
grading enzymes have been commer- “At Ginkgo, we say that our part- lieves this solution could be expanded
cialised. GreenLab aims to tackle this ners can find the needle they’re looking in the future to serve as a degradation
difficult enzymological problem by for in our tech stack. We’ll be deploying technology for other applications where
leveraging Ginkgo Enzyme Services to our powerful AI-enabled in-house com- there is a significant unmet need today,
discover and develop a novel enzyme putational tools, best-in-class enzyme such as in-situ soil remediation.
for use in their PFAS degradation app-
lication. This project is the first step in Biosynth acquires VIO Chemicals
a journey that could potentially lead to
the first deployment of a commercially Biosynth, a Switzerland-based sup- mediates, and speciality excipients,
viable enzymatic solution that can plier of raw materials to the life science among others. Mr. Urs Spitz, CEO and
degrade one of the most recalcitrant industry, has acquired VIO Chemicals, President of Biosynth, commented,
chemicals in existence. a Zurich-based company with leading “VIO Chemicals has a long standing
chemical R&D expertise and a global relationship with Biosynth and is an
Cornfield factories network of large-scale manufacturing excellent addition to our flagship ‘Com-
GreenLab’s proprietary technology partners. Biosynth said the acquisition plex Chemicals’ division. We know that
allows it to grow enzymes and other will expand its ability to secure its our customers want to stay working with
proteins inside corn kernel. By pro- customers’ supply chains by bringing us as their needs develop, so being able
ducing proteins in a cultivated crop, greater flexibility in scales for complex to offer flexibility and scope for greater
GreenLab can readily scale up pro- chemical manufacturing, with expertise scales of production, into the many
duction, with little additional up-front across carbohydrates, nucleosides, inter- metric tons, is an important part of that.”

Chemical Weekly January 9, 2024 165

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