Proterro granted patent for biosynthetic sugar-making process

December 10, 2013 |

In New Jersey, the United States Patent and Trademark Office has issued U.S. Patent No. 8,597,914 to Proterro, Inc., protecting Proterro’s unique, biosynthetic sugar-making process. The only biofeedstock company that makes sugar instead of extracting it from crops or deconstructing cellulosic materials, Proterro has developed a process that integrates uniquetransgenic sugar-producing microorganisms with a robust, modular photobioreactor made from off-the-shelf materials. This process yields a fermentation-ready sucrose stream, rather than a mixture of sugars, simplifying downstream processes and reducing their costs.

The photosynthetic microorganisms and their genetic code are already protected by U.S. Patent No. 8,367,379, a composition of matter patent specifically covering “the sequence and assembly of discrete genes of engineered cyanobacteria and the cyanobacteria themselves,” said Proterro CEO Kef Kasdin, who added that the design of the photobioreactor is itself patent pending.

Category: Fuels

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