Diversa Granted U.S. Patent Covering Evolution Technology; Issuance Further Strengthens DirectEvolution(R) Patent Portfolio
SAN DIEGO, March 11 /PRNewswire-FirstCall/ -- Diversa Corporation (Nasdaq: DVSA - news) today announced the issuance of U.S. Patent No. 6,352,842, directed to its Exo-mediated Fragment Hybridization evolution technology used to produce novel genes and proteins. The technology can be applied for the development of a variety of commercial targets, including enzymes, antibodies, therapeutic proteins, viral proteins, and anti-cancer, anti-bacterial, anti-fungal, and anti-viral agents. This patent expands Diversa's proprietary DirectEvolution® technologies and further strengthens its patent estate, which now comprises 58 issued patents, 8 notices of allowance, and over 275 filed patent applications.
``This patent represents one of many pending, allowed, and issued patents Diversa has filed to protect our broad suite of evolution technologies,'' stated Carolyn Erickson, Vice President, Intellectual Property. ``The technologies within our DirectEvolution® patent estate are comprehensive and include random, as well as non-random, recombination-based and non-recombination-based methods of evolving genes and gene pathways.''
The patented Exo-mediated Fragment Hybridization technology is a recombination-based gene reassembly approach used to produce novel genes and proteins. Single-stranded nucleic acid fragments are hybridized to single-stranded polynucleotide templates to yield heteromeric nucleic acid complexes. This exonuclease-mediated recombination process liberates terminal nucleotides from the hybridized fragment ends, and completion of the process yields the new population of mutant polynucleotides, encoding a new population of proteins. The new population is then screened for a desired property... |
