DuPont And Arzeda Collaboration To Improve Crop Productivity

Posted by Matt Hopkins|14 July 2009

US chemical companies DuPont and Arzeda Corp. announced a technology collaboration, according to PRWeb, which is intended to develop traits that will improve crop productivity. Under the agreement, DuPont business Pioneer Hi-Bred will use novel enzymes designed by Arzeda to develop next generation seed traits in major crops such as corn, soybeans, rice, cotton and canola.

Seattle, Washington-based Arzeda’s technology integrates the power of chemical catalysis, the high selectivity of biological macromolecules, and the speed of computational design to rapidly design and screen novel enzymes that don’t exist in nature and are currently inaccessible using traditional enzyme engineering approaches. “Arzeda’s tools are a perfect fit with our gene shuffling technology to enable the development of industry-leading products to increase productivity for our customers worldwide,” said John Bedbrook, DuPont vice president – Agriculture & Nutrition Research and Development. “We are pleased to work with Arzeda, the industry leader in protein engineering and designing enzymes with novel activities.”

Arzeda will use its proprietary computational protein design technology to custom-design novel enzymes that catalyze specific biological reactions; Pioneer will use its expertise in crop molecular biology and biotechnology, including its proprietary trait enhancing tool-gene shuffling, to incorporate these traits into seed products.

The agreement provides Pioneer with exclusive rights to traits resulting from the collaboration. Terms of the agreement were not disclosed.