Diversa dominates global search for blockbuster microbes

Diversa dominates global search for blockbuster microbes

GRAIN

In the last decade the US’ Diversa corporation has expanded its bioprospecting activities all over the globe, placing it very high – if not top – of the list of the world’s bioprospectors. Diversa is one of an increasing number of companies hoping to make blockbuster biotech products from the estimated 99% of the earth’s microbial diversity that cannot be cultured in the laboratory and that has thereby eluded previous scientific study. Its particular interest is in finding enzymes from what it calls extreme environments, which seems to include anything from ice glaciers and geysers to coral reefs and paddy fields.

Diversa bypasses the traditional step of culturing out micro-organisms from samples and jumps right to the DNA. It runs samples of soil, seawater or tissue through its DNA sequencing technologies to get the DNA fragments of all the micro-organisms present in the sample. It then takes this mess of DNA, chops it up into gene fragments and genetically engineers them into easy-to-culture micro-organisms that express the proteins encoded by the genes and screens the proteins for promising enzymes. The company says it has collected the genes for over 3 million micro-organisms and claims to be able to screen a billion genes per day. Diversa’s large DNA collection is matched by a large patent collection, now standing at 192 patents, with over 500 patents pending.

Diversa’s patented DNA is sourced from around the world. The company has bioprospecting agreements on every continent, with access to at least nine of the world’s biodiversity hotspots. The company generally does not negotiate with local communities. It signs agreements with local institutions that have access to sites that it is interested in and then gets them to collect and provide samples for the company in exchange for “training” and a small share of “undisclosed” potential royalties.

Diversa’s research offers few practical benefits for local communities. Its agreement with Mexico’s National Autonomous University, one of the few to come to light, opened the country’s diversity up to the company and in exchange the University was promised only equipment valued at $5,000, technical training in bioprospecting, $50 for each sample collected, royalties of 0.5% on pharmaceuticals derived from the samples and 0.3% royalties for any other products. [1]

The agreements are often portrayed as supporting scientific research but Diversa’s activities do little to increase understanding of the ecosystems where it bioprospects because it simply extracts the DNA from samples and screens it for useful compounds. It generates no information about the actual organisms that the DNA belongs to. [2] The other downside of this method is that it leaves bioprospectors searching around in the dark for potential blockbuster molecules. Diversa can work with small samples but finding a valuable molecule can take a lot of samples when you don’t know what you’re looking for and this mass sampling can put the fragile ecosystems where Diversa often goes hunting at risk. There’s also the worry that a successful find can ignite a bioprospecting gold rush for the mysterious DNA.

The real beneficiaries of Diversa’s research and bioprospecting are its corporate clients in the pharmaceutical, chemical and agricultural industries. Diversa is working on feed additives for Danisco, pharmaceuticals enzymes for Dow and biocatalysts for the production of fuel ethanol from corn for DuPont. It’s also one of the main recipients of funding from the US Department of Defence’s BioDefense research program, having received well-over US$ 10 million to date.

But Diversa’s closest partner is Syngenta. Early in 1999, Syngenta purchased over 5.5 million shares of Diversa stock and the two began a strategic alliance that led, later that year, to the formation of Zymetrics, a joint venture to develop products for animal feed and agricultural product processing. Zymetrics’ first product was an enzyme for animal feed that it introduced in Mexico in 2003 and it plans to launch transgenic corn phytase and amylase products for the feed industry between 2006-2007 through Syngenta Seeds. In February 2003, Syngenta shut the doors on one of its most important research centres in the US and shifted 71 of its researchers over to Diversa as part of a 7-year US$118 million transaction. Syngenta also upped its ownership stake in Diversa to around 20%. [3]

Table 1. Diversa’s bioprospecting agreements from 1999-2004

Source: company websites and press releases.

Footnotes:

[1] GRAIN, “Sprouting Up: Diversa Deals Revealed,” Seedling, December 1999. www.grain.org/seedling/?id=164

[2] Colin Deeney, “How scientists are persuading the oceans to give up their secrets,” The Pharmaceutical Journal, Vol 268 No 7197, 11 May 2002, pp655-656.

[3] Penni Crabtree, “Diversa, No. 1 crop chemical firm in deal,” The San Diego Union Tribune, December 5, 2002.

[4] BioMedNet profile on Arctos Pharmaceuticals: www.siliconinvestor.com/readmsg.aspx?msgid=16702219

See also:

Our March 1999 Seedling article "Bacteria becomes big business" - http://www.grain.org/seedling/?id=61

Yellowstone National Park: ‘For the benefit and enjoyment of the people’? by B.Burrows http://www.twnside.org.sg/title/cop7d.htm