Solazyme Increases Focus on Biofuels

5 March 2007

Solazyme, an algal biotechnology company, is increasing its focus on biofuels with the hiring of Dr. Donald E. Trimbur as Senior Director, Biofuel Development.

Solazyme, founded in 2003, genetically engineers various species of algae to produce pharmaceuticals, chemicals and fuels. The company recently closed a “significant” round of funding, according to a report in VentureWire.

The company’s technology platform consists of several integrated methods and techniques: directed evolution; high-throughput robotic screening; proprietary techniques; and metabolic engineering.

Dr. Trimbur is a metabolic engineer and microbiologist with more than twenty years in academic and industrial biotechnology research and development. He was most recently Head of the Protein Science research group of Genencor, where he spent thirteen years. During this period he led industrial biotechnology projects in a number of business areas, including his work on the ground-breaking metabolic engineering project for highly efficient bioproduction of 1, 3- propanediol with Genencor’s partner Dupont.

Resources:

• “Algal Transgenics in the Genomic Era”; Tara L. Walker, Chris Collet, Saul Purton; Journal of Phycology 41 (6), 1077–1093.