Agriculture

Manufacturer of bio-derived hydrogen peroxide using synthetic biology intended to make photosynthesis better. The company engineers enzymes that are used instead of traditional chemical catalysts to remove organic solvents during the production of hydrogen peroxide, allowing the process to occur in any environment while reducing carbon emissions.

GigaCrop Founder and CEO Dr. Christopher Eiben earned his PhD in bioengineering at UC Berkeley, focusing on synthetic metabolism and protein engineering in the lab of UC Berkeley Professor Dr. Jay Keasling, a pioneer in...

Evergreen Saponins is commercializing a sustainable, scalable production method for saponins, unlocking a new supply chain for an essential ingredient in processed food, bio-pesticides, medicines, vaccines, and more. Early in his career, company founder Dr. Ricardo San Martin developed techniques for harvesting saponins from the wood and bark of mature wild trees in Chile, fueling demand for the additive worldwide. Now the chemical engineer has invented a breakthrough method to extract commercial-grade saponins from the leaves of Chilean soapbark trees, Quillaja...

Ceres, Inc. produced seeds of genetically modified crops used for biofuel production. The biotech company, based in Thousand Oaks, California, with a subsidiary in Brazil called Ceres Sementes do Brasil, operated from 1996 to 2016, when it was acquired by Land O'Lakes.

Robert Fischer, Yeonhee Choi, Van-Dinh Dang, Mary Gehring, Robert Goldberg, Michael Hannon, John Harada, Tetsu Kinoshita, Tomohiro Kiyosue, Linda Margossian, Yukiko Mizukami, Nir Ohad, Jack Okamuro, Ramin Yadegari

Richard Hamilton, Benjamin Schapiro

Berkeley Yeast is a startup founded by UC Berkeley scientists, with grant funding from NSF, NIH, and USDA, as well as from venture capital. Berkeley Yeast bioengineers yeast strains that improve fermentation for brewers, winemakers, and beyond. The company uses synthetic biology to develop yeast strains with a variety of benefits, ranging from unprecedented control over flavors, to protection against the increasing vulnerability of crops, to greater product shelf stability and increased production efficiency. CEO Charles Denby co-founded the company based on the...