NEW CASTLE, Del., Jan. 23, 2018 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- White Dog Labs (WDL), an emerging biotech company, today laid out its growth strategy by announcing collaborations with Air Liquide and the Center for Aquaculture Technologies Canada (CATC).
WDL has invented a proprietary process, Protocol B™, for the isolation, selection and cultivation of microbiome-derived Clostridia. The process has yielded large, diverse and novel strain libraries. Clostridia is a long known but less understood class of bacteria, with promising implications for nutrition and health, thanks to ground-breaking studies and emerging applications in microbiome science. In addition to Protocol B, WDL has developed advanced synthetic biology tools for Clostridia, thus coupling boundless natural diversity with directed innovation. The company is also continuing to refine its proprietary fermentation technology platform, known as MixoFerm™. The technology improves the efficiency of Clostridia-based fermentation processes by up to 100 percent, thus increasing the cost effectiveness of bioproducts ranging from food and feed, to biofuels and chemicals.
"I am delighted to announce key partnerships for the development of multiple product lines," said WDL's CEO, Bryan Tracy. “Given the richness, breadth and potential of our technology, it makes good business sense to join forces with industry leaders for mutual benefit.”
The partnership with Air Liquide is to develop biochemicals based on WDL’s genetically engineered Clostridia, using WDL’s MixoFerm fermentation technology. Air Liquide, the world’s leader in gases, technologies and services for Industry and Health, will contribute its expertise to scale-up MixoFerm, which increases product yield from sugar by adding hydrogen or syngas to the fermentation. “Air Liquide’s collaboration with WDL fits our R&D strategy of developing sustainable technologies. Leveraging scientific and startup ecosystems allows us to deliver new customer-centric solutions,” said Olivier Letessier, VP R&D for Air Liquide.
WDL has received a multi-million-dollar grant from the DOE to continue the development of ProTyton™. ProTyton is an advanced nutrition protein ingredient in the form of Single Cell Protein (SCP), which is composed of anaerobically derived Clostridia, and aims to deliver performance, sustainability and health benefits. WDL is collaborating with CATC to evaluate ProTyton. “With its high protein and excellent essential amino acids content, ProTyton was found to be a nutritional salmon feed ingredient even at 30 percent inclusion rate,” said Andre Dumas, Director of Fish Nutrition at CATC. Due to its high protein content, ProTyton is a sustainable replacement for fishmeal. The current price for fishmeal is $2000/ton, and annual production is estimated to be approximately five million tons.
“We’re privileged to work with these industry leaders,” noted Tracy. “Collaboration gives us a faster route to turning our technology into multiple product lines that will deliver meaningful innovation to a wide range of industries.”
For information on Air Liquide, please visit www.airliquide.com
For information on the Center for Aquaculture Technologies, please visit www.aquatechcenter.com
For information on White Dog Labs, please visit www.whitedoglabs.com
Protocol B, MixoFerm, and ProTyton are trademarks of WDL
White Dog Labs Contact
Bryan Tracy
btracy@whitedoglabs.com