07/23/2003

New Phase II SBIR Awards Support Genomes to Life Program (GTL)

Summary

Three of the 2003 Phase II SBIR winners may produce products that will speed scientific discovery for the GTL program. Most microbes cannot be grown as pure cultures in the laboratory yet many of these microbes have biochemical capabilities that could be used to address DOE energy and environmental needs. Information on any microbe’s biochemical capabilities can be obtained from its DNA sequence yet it is difficult to get enough DNA and big enough pieces of DNA from microbes that can’t be grown in laboratory cultures. Phase II SBIR awards to Molecular Staging Inc. and to Lucigen Corporation will provide scientists with new tools needed to get large quantities and large pieces of DNA from unculturable microbes for DNA sequence analysis. A third Phase II SBIR award to Genomatica, Inc., will provide scientists with new software that will speed the assembly of information on the functions of individual genes in a genome, obtained from DNA sequencing, into networks of genes that work together to carry out an organism’s various biochemical processes. All three of these new research awards support core needs of the GTL program.