The CU Technology Transfer Office announced that ChBE Associate Professor and Patten Fellow Ryan Gill has received a patent for a genomic engineering tool to enable the production of eco-friendly high-value chemicals through microbe-based biorefining.
In 2007, Gill co-founded OPX Biotechnologies with former ChBE researcher Michael Lynch to commercialize a genome-engineering platform developed in the Gill lab to design new strains of microbes for biorefining and next-generation biofuels and biochemical applications. Lynch, a co-inventor on this patent, now serves as scientific advisor at OPX.
U.S. 8,883,464 (“Methods for Producing 3-Hydroxypropionic Acid and Other Products”) was issued on November 11, 2014, and is part of a sizable international portfolio of intellectual property being commercialized by OPX. In addition to Gill and Lynch, former ChBE researcher Tanya Lipscomb (now of OPX) is an inventor on this patent.