Kosan Gets $500,000 to Develop New Method for Polyketide Overproduction
Since polyketides are often produced in small amounts in their natural hosts, scientists must subject the host organism to a process called "strain improvement" to obtain commercial amounts. The process, which involves repeated cycles of random mutagenesis and screening to find organisms that have been genetically modified to overproduce the polyketide of interest, can take many years to complete.
Kosan will apply its proprietary technologies to develop generic "super hosts" that have been pre-modified to contain the genetic changes required for polyketide over-production. The company believes that when genetic instructions for a polyketide are then supplied to such hosts, the desired polyketide will be produced in large quantities.
According to company chairman and CEO Daniel V. Santi, successful development of such an approach would enable Kosan to produce in months an amount of polyketides that would take years by conventional methods. "This would shorten the time scale of our internal research, and provide important new opportunities for us in the area of manufacturing of polyketide pharmaceuticals," he added.
Kosan is a privately held biotechnology company that focuses on the genetic manipulation of a class of organic, natural molecules known as polyketides. The company has six primary programs for the discovery and development of novel polyketides for bacterial infections, gastrointestinal motility disorders, mucus hypersecretion, cancer, immunosuppression, and nerve regeneration.
For more information: Michael S. Ostrach, Kosan Biosciences Inc., 3832 Bay Center Place, Hayward, CA 94545. Tel: 510-732-8400, ext. 207. Email: ostrach@kosan.com.