Team:CSU Fort Collins/Entrepreneurship

COLORADO STATE
UNIVERSITY iGEM

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Entrepreneurship

Contents

1 Summary
2 Company Description
3 Economic Analysis
4 Clients

Summary

This year CSU iGEM has been working towards production of trans-zeatin via the MEP pathway in E. coli. Trans-zeatin is normally extracted from plant tissue which decreases yield and drives up the cost. Trans-zeatin is a useful product because it is a plant hormone that increases lateral bud growth. Sigma-Aldrich currently sells trans-zeatin for $5,000 a gram. Utilizing a rapidly-reproducing alternative host bacteria will drive down the cost of land and speed up the production of trans-zeatin, resulting in decreased cost. Using frying oil as our feedstock will also significantly reduce cost. We have filed a provisional patent on this process, as we believe that this would be easily commercialized.

As students who will be graduating from CSU this year a majority of our team is contemplating the idea of taking some time off before continuing to graduate school and developing this idea as a startup business. There is a significant amount of work to be done in order to develop this business plan and idea before we will be able to turn our project idea into a successful business, but we are on our way into development.

Company Description

Once our company can optimize production of trans-zeatin from E. coli, we will be able to work on Research and Development in order to manufacture more products, such as terpenoids from the MEP pathway or other cytokinins.

Economic Analysis

While there are a few companies that currently sell trans-zeatin, it is all from plant tissue extraction. Due to our lowered costs of production. we may be able to produce trans-zeatin and sell it at a lower cost and still maintain profit.

In order to produce trans-zeatin at a low cost we will need a production facility. We have come up with the idea to develop a solar panel heated warm room in order to reduce energy costs. Because we are able to grow E. coli off of frying oil this will eliminate the cost of growth media and glucose. We have a significant amount of startup costs due to the expense of the equipment used in our process. We will need equipment such as large bioreactors, an HPLC, an LC-MS, an autoclave, etc.

Clients

Ultimately, we believe that the industrialization of trans-zeatin production will reduce the cost at which it is available for use in research. We also believe that once we can produce zeatin in large enough amounts, we would be able to sell it for industrial and agricultural use.