Breakthrough technology harnesses microorganism for use as green bio-pesticide

Gainesville, Florida. Aug. 26, 2009. Today, the open access journal BMC Biotechnology published a collaborative study between EVOLUGATE, LLC and scientists at the UNIVERSITY OF FLORIDA that discloses the first use of a new technology to experimentally evolve industrially important filamentous fungi, which are among the most widely used microorganisms for industrial applications. In this case, the goal was to evolve improved "green" bio-pesticides.

The publication of this report coincides with the 200th anniversary of the birth of Charles Darwin, who discovered the process of evolution by natural selection. The Evolugate technology exploits the power of Darwinian evolution to select for strains that reproduce faster than their competitors in continuous culture.

While the concept behind the technology is not new, its innovative solutions to intractable problems associated with continuous culture make it a breakthrough in experimental evolution. Previously developed methods of continuous culture are either manually intensive, carry with them a high risk of contamination or invariably select for traits that allow microbes to evade selective pressures rather than adapt to them. This new technology is fully automated and allows experimental evolution to be run indefinitely with little risk of contamination and no risk of incidental selection for undesirable traits.

EVOLUGATE will promote and market the use of its technology for the production of novel bioinsecticides under the name ENTOVIA, a newly created division exclusively dedicated to that purpose.

Microorganisms are essential players in a variety of other industries. Evolugate technology can be used to rapidly produce the best adapted and most efficient strains for virtually any application, including for the conversion of biomass to biofuels, bioremediation, biosynthesis of fermentation products to compounds like antibiotics. EVOLUGATE aims to become a major player in these exciting fields as well.

"From environmental protection to human medicine, the power of evolution is needed to create solutions to the problems facing us," says Steven Benner, who directs the Gainesville-based research Foundation for Applied Molecular Evolution. "The Evolugate methodology harnesses this power in ways previously unavailable, and their work published today proves this for a problem of considerable importance."

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Legend : Migratory Grasshopper adult killed by Metarhizium fungus, which emerges from the dead insect’s body as green spores. Photograph courtesy of USDA Agricultural Research Service.