Panning for Gold in Them Thar' Genomes - Brief Article

Applied Genetics News, March, 2000

Diversa Corp. (10665 Sorrento Valley Rd., San Diego, CA 92121; Tel: 858/453- 7020, Fax: 858/453-7032) has been issued U.S. Patent 6,030,779 relating to sequence-based gene discovery from the environment, which the company refers to as "genomic biopanning."

Diversa's biopanning processes are methods for recovery of families of related genes from environmental gene libraries. In contrast to traditional sequence- based discovery methods, biopanning enables screening rates that are 10,000 times faster. The sequence-related genes recovered via biopanning may have direct utility in the production of commercial products, such as enzymes for chemical processing, consumer products, and orally-active drugs.

Biopanned gene families serve as the breeding stock for Diversa's proprietary GeneReassembly evolution methods that physically blend related genes to create complex libraries of gene variants. The variants in these evolution libraries are then screened to identify clones that possess optimal characteristics.

"We believe these sequence and expression-based environmental screening methodologies, together with our proprietary evolution technologies, enable us to combine the best genes available from nature with the most efficient evolution strategies to achieve maximum performance," says Jay M. Short, Diversa's president and CEO.