Viridos works with microalgae to decarbonize entire industries and create products that are in harmony with nature and will provide the solutions needed for a greener and more prosperous future.
We are building a scalable platform for low-carbon intensity biofuels, which can reduce greenhouse gas emissions from aviation, commercial trucking, and maritime shipping by nearly 70%. By establishing production sites to grow Viridos-engineered microalgae in saltwater, we are creating the foundation for a biofuel future that moves away from fossil fuels without competing for precious resources such as fresh water and arable land.
At Viridos, our purpose is to design, bio engineer, and deploy microalgae to produce algae oil at scale as the preferred feedstock for renewable fuels. Particularly for airplanes, trucks, ships, and trains where payload and range are essential the need for an energy-dense liquid fuel will only grow. The challenge is therefore, how to replace existing fossil fuel jet fuel and diesel with a sustainable and scalable alternative?
Sustainable aviation fuel (SAF) and renewable diesel (RD) already exist but the bio-feedstocks from which they are refined are of limited quantity and they are often produced from plant oils. As demand for sustainable aviation fuel and renewable diesel continues to grow rapidly to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, we are running out of options. Producing plant oil at the quantities needed is severely limited by the amount of arable land and freshwater resources available. This creates an unacceptable compromise: grow crops for food and feed, or divert them to produce biofuels?
While this is a bold mission, at Viridos, we have some unique capabilities that enable us to achieve it. These include continuous genomic innovation, systems to maximize biological productivity, a sensor network platform to enable precision agriculture for algal cultivation, and scalable deployment platforms.
We are replacing today’s unsustainable approaches with products and processes that reduce greenhouse gas emissions and ultimately help create a future where we all can thrive.
Viridos extracted oil, both with dry and wet processes. The extraction efficiency exceeded 90%. This milestone is important to advance and get closer from algae oil to renewable diesel or Sustainable Aviation Fuel.
Viridos accomplishes a 95% crop success rate in 2022, built on years of experience growing algae outdoors and combined with a robust production host.
This accomplishment relied on a multi-disciplinary approach including thoroughly characterizing strains prior to deployment, a well-developed scale-up and production process, and integrated pest management .
Viridos achieves outdoor algal bio-oil productivity of 9.1 grams/m2/day in open ponds system at the California Advanced Algal Facility. This demonstrates the translatability of algal productivities from the lab to the field.
This is substantially higher than what has been reported in the field and a key milestone towards our goal of deploying microalgae to produce low carbon intensity fuels at scale.
Viridos obtains additional EPA approval to conduct outdoor cultivation of our lead engineered algal biofuels strains. This is our third consecutively approved TERA application.
Downscaling large open race-ways, Viridos has developed and deployed mini-ponds with the capability to simulate the light, temperature, and other environmental conditions algae experience in a production system. This allows us to test strains 365 days a year in conditions mimicking our outdoor production facility, or anywhere in the world our strains may be deployed.
We developed a proprietary RNA replicon platform to selectively stimulate the immune system and deliver targeted therapies produced within a person’s own body. This technology enables a new class of vaccines and combination therapies to combat cancer and infectious diseases.
The platform has been successfully partnered with leading human and animal health companies.
Acknowledging the global need for more sustainable vegetarian food protein sources, our discovery and improvement of algae strains that ferment sugars into high-quality nutritional proteins and oils provided a solution.
Based on this work, Smallfoods developed food proteins and oils from non‐engineered algal strains developed by Viridos.
Implementation of the California Advanced Algae Facility (CAAF), where we are piloting the next generation of our algae biofuels program. It begins the journey of taking the lead algae strain from the lab to open ponds.
Viridos developed, in partnership with United Therapeutics, the capabilities to engineer pig cells with the goal of generating humanized pig organs for transplantation and partners the program.
Viridos modified an algae strain that more than doubled its oil content without inhibiting the strain’s growth. The results were published in the peer-reviewed journal Nature Biotechnology.
Proprietary algae “strain 15” becomes our lead developmental algal chassis. Combining exceptional biomass and lipid productivities with robustness in the face of harsh production conditions this strain has what it takes to make it a deployable production strain.
Initial steps towards domestication and development of strain engineering tools lay the foundation for further improvements.
We built the first minimal synthetic bacterial cell. This is the smallest genome of any organism that can be grown in laboratory media. This feat led to new tools and semi-automated processes for whole-genome synthesis, aiding in more efficient development of biologic drugs.
Viridos discovered the genetic switch that enables the concurrent growth and increased production of lipids. This discovery is key to enable the production of bio-oil from algae.
We developed “supercharged” phages, a type of virus, to combat antibiotic-resistant strains of Pseudomonas, a bug that causes skin infections, sepsis, and potentially fatal pneumonia. Phage therapy has the potential to treat multidrug-resistant bacterial infections.
Based on our engineered phage, we developed a proprietary bacteriophage engineering platform to address the inherent limitations of natural phage as a therapeutic and aprtnered with Armata Pharmaceuticals.
Viridos developed a cloning module – a new capability that automates and expedites DNA cloning, currently used worldwide. Based on this innovation, we developed an automated manufacturing process that significantly reduced the time it takes to create DNA constructs.
At the core of this process is the BioXp, the world's first benchtop DNA printer, enabling biotechnology, pharmaceutical, academic, or government laboratories to create DNA from electronically transmitted sequence data.
We spun off this technology into a new company in 2019, now Codex DNA.
Viridos developed a synthetic approach that rapidly generated a vaccine seed from downloadable sequence data, due to the threat posed by the H7N9 bird flu.
0ver 2000 eukaryotic algae species were isolated after a 2-year global expedition to find the best naturally occurring salt and temperature tolerant strains. This has generated a one-of-a-kind proprietary algal library collection.
Viridos developed the first self-replicating synthetic cell, a bacterial cell that was digitally designed and brought to life through chemical synthesis. This enables the development of many important cell-based applications, including vaccines, pharmaceuticals, biofuels, and food products.
Beginning of algal research and development partnership with ExxonMobil as alternative solution to decarbonizing transportation.
This assembly method, first published in Nature Methods, can be used to seamlessly construct synthetic and natural genes, genetic pathways, and entire genomes and functions as a useful molecular engineering tool.
Founded as Synthetic Genomics (SGI) in 2005 by leading figures in synthetic biology, including J Craig Venter and Nobel Laureate Hamilton Smith, SGI quickly established itself as a powerhouse for innovative research, transplanting the first genome, synthesizing the first bacterial genome, and creating the first synthetic cell. Over more than a decade, we’ve created a legacy of genomic innovations, building the tools, scientific data, and applied knowledge to address unsolved sustainability challenges. We are now applying our synthetic biology expertise with a complete focus on humanity’s greatest challenge: climate change.
To reflect our complete focus on microalgae for a greener future, we renamed the company in 2021 to Viridos, from viridis = green, fresh in latin, os = operating system that powers a cell.
