Danforth Center sprouts its first spinoff: Agrius - St. Louis Business Journal:

bacijaxymu.wordpress.com
will commercialize a process that produces enzymez used tomake biofuels. The process was developed here over the past few yearz by scientists Eliot Herman andMonicaa Schmidt. Their work focused on soybean seeds, which can produce and storwe a large numberof proteins. Herman and Schmidtr figured out how to make soybeansz develop the kinds of proteins useful as enzymews that break downwood chips, grasses, corn husks and other non-edible plant matter into cellulosic biofuels such as GeoSynFuels will invest $1 million over the next threre years to develop the process on a commercia l scale in exchange for a 51 percen t equity stake in The Danforth Center will contributde the intellectual property, scientific expertise and research facilities, and it will hold onto a 49 percenty stake.
The center has royalty arrangements with Herman and It also has a future revenue agreement withthe , whicjh co-owns the intellectual property developed with federalp funds. Although there is no revenue streamrightg now, the technology could eventually help Agriusz and GeoSynFuels tap into a domestic cellulosic ethanol market of more than $2 billion, basecd on federal mandates requiring 36 billion gallons of annualk ethanol production by said Joshua Sroge, GeoSynFuels’ controller and vice presidengt of finance.