In December 2023 GreenLab announced a symbiotic partnership with Ginkgo BioWorks and Allonnia that matches each company's core skills in a unique, and highly effective value chain with the goal of developing a novel enzyme that can bio-remediates PFAS. ‘Forever chemicals’ are a category of industrial contaminants that do not break down easily in the environment. Allonnia, has been working for the last 3 years with clients that span landfills, municipalities, industrial sites, airports and others to deploy PFAS remediation solutions. They learned that it takes in depth application knowledge to ensure that transformational biological solutions will be successful which is the powerful goal of this collaboration.
Think of Ginkgo, GreenLab and Allonnia as three synergistic components in a powerful go-to-market formula - DISCOVER | DELIVER | DEPLOY. Ginkgo is leading a discovery campaign leveraging its vast database to identify a library of PFAS-degrading enzymes. Then, using advanced ultra-high throughput screening, it will identify unique enzymes with desired activity and transfer the best candidates to GreenLab.
Ginkgo is providing these services under its success-based pricing model, created to help companies like GreenLab de-risk their research and development efforts. At GreenLab our technology allows us to grow enzymes and other proteins inside a corn kernel. By producing enzymes in a cultivated crop, we can readily scale up production across acres of cornfields, with little additional up-front capital and infrastructure. The PFAS remediating enzyme is extracted from the kernel with minimal waste, and the corn by-product will then be used for food, feed or fuel. Allonnia will then commercialize the innovation.
The promise of biology will only be realized by combining like-minded forces in partnerships like this one, and supporting that with appropriate regulatory legislation. For GreenLab, this partnership allows us to scale our plant biotech platform and focus on what we do best—developing the factory of the future.