Center for Advanced BioEnergy Research, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign

Friday, March 11, 2011

Monsanto makes move into algae research, partners with Sapphire

Biodiesel Magazine
By Luke Geiver March 08, 2011

Monsanto Co. is entering the algae business after announcing a collaborative effort with Sapphire Energy to utilize Sapphire’s algae research abilities. Monsanto hopes to discover genes that could potentially increase crop yield or reduce crop stress in one of its core products, corn, cotton or soybeans. The new algae venture is a first for Monsanto, said Kelli Powers of Monsanto’s public affairs department. “For us, we have a pipeline and obviously that first step in our pipeline is discovery,” Powers said. “We see algae research that Sapphire is doing as a promising tool to screen genes early in that discovery process and to identify promising traits that could help with yield and stress.”

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