Conagen Supports DARPA's Resource Sustainability Programme

KUALA LUMPUR, Dec 10 -- Massachusetts-based biotech Conagen has announced participation in a collaboration supporting the ReSource program funded by a US Department of Defense (DOD) grant.

The project aims to leverage Conagen's proprietary fermentation technology to convert plastics and other energy-dense waste into valuable, reusable materials.

"Humanity needs to make better use of plastic resources and close the recycling loop," said Casey Lippmeier, Ph.D., vice president of innovation at Conagen. This cooperative agreement project will demonstrate the value of recycled material for building a sustainable infrastructure."

Under the DOD, the US Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) Biological Technologies Office created the ReSource Program to research and develop an integrated self-containment system. The project explores using a combination of synthetic biology and chemical technology for turning plastic waste into critical supplies.

Professor Chris A. Voigt, Ph.D., directs the project at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) in collaboration with Conagen and Novoloop. The Voigt lab has expertise in microbial genetic design and engineering and has created tools and platform technologies central to the effort.

According to a statement, Conagen was selected as the fermentation scale-up partner for its synthetic biology expertise, purification process development capability, and world-scale manufacturing.

"Recycling plastic waste is just the beginning," says Lippmeier. "This DARPA-funded project primarily seeks to improve the efficient use of resources by our troops. However, the technology for converting plastics and bio-plastics into other higher-value materials should create incentives to remove these pollutants from the environment and support humanitarian efforts with renewable sources of food, nutrition, and water."

Now that Phase I is complete, the MIT team, including Conagen, advance to Phase II when they hope to achieve purifying, scaling, and upcycling waste into valuable products.

For more information, visit www.conagen.com.

-- BERNAMA