Verenium collects soil, water or other environment samples that potentially contain millions of microbes.

Samples are brought back to the laboratory and categorized in preparation for the HTC process.

The nutrients are extracted from a sample in liquid form and held for later use in the HTC process.

Individual microorganisms are encapsulated into microspheres and packed into a column.

The nutrients are added back to the encapsulated cells.

Within each microsphere, microcolonies are formed from the individual microorganisms.

Microspheres that contain microcolonies are sorted by a Fluorescence Activated Cell Sorter (FACS). Microspheres containing no cells or too few cells are discarded.

The microspheres containing microcolonies of microorganisms are grown up further in 96-well plates, where they can be categorized by DNA sequence or screened for targeted activity.