Dec. 7 /PRNewswire/ -- Diversa Corporation (Nasdaq: DVSA - news) today announced the signing of a biodiversity access agreement giving the company rights to obtain environmental samples from South Africa, a region known for the diversity of its ecosytems. This diversity is exemplified by the Cape Floristic Region, which contains over 9,000 plant species, 70% of which are endemic to that region, making it one of the world's most biologically diverse environments. In addition, South Africa contains areas of extreme climatic diversity, ranging from deserts to semi-tropical jungles. Within these diverse regions, there are identified ``hot spots'', which are high in species richness, have a high concentration of endemic species and a high rate of habitat loss. By obtaining small samples from these sites, Diversa is expanding its broad and diverse microbial genomic libraries for the purpose of developing products for the pharmaceutical, agricultural, chemical processing, and industrial markets.
``As the industry leader in genomic discovery from the environment, Diversa is uniquely positioned to utilize the microbial genomic resources available in South Africa's rich forests and grasslands to identify novel products,'' stated Jay M. Short, Ph.D., President and CEO of Diversa. ``This agreement with South Africa marks another milestone for Diversa in expanding our global biodiversity network.''
This latest agreement is part of Diversa's global biodiversity access network, based on pioneering research collaborations, which grant legal biodiversity access to regions such as Alaska, Costa Rica, Bermuda, Indonesia, Yellowstone National Park, and Russia. This agreement gives Diversa the rights to discover genes and commercialize products from environmental samples provided by CSIR (Council for Scientific and Industrial Research), a research organization currently undertaking nearly 10% of all research and development activities on the African Continent. In exchange, Diversa will support the ongoing bioprospecting activities of the CSIR organization and its collaborators and pay royalties on Diversa's revenues from any products developed from samples provided.... |
