Microbes, such as bacteria and fungi, are the world’s most abundant and varied organisms and can be found in almost every ecosystem, including oceans, deserts, rain forests and arctic regions. Through generations of natural selection in diverse environments, microbes have developed characteristics that are broader and more varied than those encountered in plants or animals. These characteristics, which include the ability to survive in extreme temperature, tolerate high or low pH and high or low salt environments, are the result of the highly diverse genetic material found in the microbial world.
In the quest to discover novel products, Verenium through bioprospecting taps into the vast genetic resources of the microbial world by venturing into varied and often hostile ecosystems, such as volcanoes and deep sea hydrothermal vents, to collect the microbial genes that produce enzymes. Because the harsh temperature and pH conditions in which these “extremophiles” live often mimic those found in today’s industrial processes, they are a rich source of potential products. Through the use of proprietary technologies, we extract microbial DNA directly from collected samples to avoid the slow and often impossible task of trying to culture individual microbes in a laboratory. With high-throughput screening, we then mine our collection of billions of "extreme" microbial genomes in search of unique enzymes. Once identified, these enzymes can be optimized for targeted application using Verenium's DirectEvolution® technology.
In addition to extracting microbial DNA directly from samples, Verenium has recently developed High Throughput Culturing™ technology (HTC). This method has pioneered a method to rapidly cultivate and isolate mixed populations of microorganisms.
