{"id":14817,"date":"2013-07-22T16:41:12","date_gmt":"2013-07-22T20:41:12","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/sciencebusiness.technewslit.com\/?p=14817"},"modified":"2013-07-22T16:41:12","modified_gmt":"2013-07-22T20:41:12","slug":"renewable-biochemical-spin-offs-land-small-business-grants","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/technewslit.com\/sciencebusiness\/?p=14817","title":{"rendered":"Renewable Biochemical Spin-Offs Land Small Business Grants"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"Shivani<\/a>
Shivani Garg (Iowa State University)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Two start-up companies, founded to commercialize research on renewable biochemicals at Iowa State University<\/a> at Ames, received small business research grants from National Science Foundation to develop their technologies for the marketplace. The companies —\u00a0OmegaChea Biorenewables in Ames and\u00a0Glucan Biorenewables in St. Louis — are spin-off enterprises from Iowa State’s\u00a0Center for Biorenewable Chemicals<\/a>.<\/p>\n

OmegaChea Biorenewables<\/a>, founded by biochemistry doctoral candidate\u00a0Shivani Garg, is developing bio-based feedstocks for household products like detergents, lubricants, and polyester plastic made today largely from petroleum-based raw materials. In her research, Garg re-engineered enzyme-producing microbes that transform omega fatty acids into catalysts for processing plant sugars into bio-based chemical feedstocks.<\/p>\n

The NSF grant<\/a> supports the work of two Iowa State faculty,\u00a0Ludmila Rizshsky and\u00a0Basil J. Nikolau, who are partnering with\u00a0OmegaChea Biorenewables to devise a manufacturing platform that scales up Garg’s research from the lab to the factory (Nikolau is also the company’s chief scientist). The one-year, $225,000\u00a0grant was awarded by NSF under its\u00a0Small Business Technology Transfer<\/a> program that supports joint ventures between academic scientists and small companies.<\/p>\n

Glucan Biorenewables<\/a> is also a Center for Biorenewable Chemicals\u00a0spin-off company, but most of its academic research was conducted in the lab of James Dumesic\u00a0at University of Wisconsin in Madison, a partner in the Center with Iowa State. The company is developing a technology for converting biomass to chemical feedstocks using a solvent derived from biomass. Lab evidence indicates the solvent, known as\u00a0gamma-valerolactone<\/a>, offers yield and cost advantages over current methods.<\/p>\n

The six-month $150,000 Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) grant from NSF<\/a> will fund a proof-of-concept study testing the\u00a0Glucan Biorenewables process on real agricultural residues, such as corn stover and bagasse; it has so far been tested in the lab only with pure glucose and\u00a0xylose sugars. Wisconsin’s\u00a0David Alonso<\/a>, a colleague of Dumesic,\u00a0is leading the study. SBIR grants<\/a> fund scientific research with commercial potential by small businesses.<\/p>\n

Center for Biorenewable Chemicals has 30 industry partners, ranging from start-ups like\u00a0OmegaChea and\u00a0Glucan Biorenewables to industry giants like Michelin and BASF. One of the Center’s objectives is to encourage entrepreneurship, and uses it as a way of testing the commercial potential of its discoveries.<\/p>\n

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