Caravel Bio Accelerates Cost‑Efficient Carbon Capture with Novel Protein Engineering
In just six months, Caravel's novel bioengineering technology has increased biocatalyst stability 12-fold.
PORTLAND, Ore., May 12, 2026 /PRNewswire/ -- Caravel Bio, the company engineering industrial-strength proteins from discovery to deployment, today announces its participation in the Shell GameChanger program, where it is receiving funding to assess the potential of its unique biocatalyst development technology to enable lower-cost, more efficient carbon capture. Since joining the program in July 2025, Caravel has surpassed a key technical milestone toward this goal: increasing enzyme stability in industrially relevant conditions 12-fold.
Overcoming the Limits of Traditional Carbon Capture Technology
Traditional carbon capture technology has yet to deliver economically viable results at scale. Despite decades of development and billions in subsidies, many carbon capture projects have underperformed or struggled to reach scale due to prohibitive costs.
Yet, federal policy continues to double down on its potential. In July 2025, the Federal government preserved the $85/ton credit for carbon capture introduced under the Inflation Reduction Act and extended that same rate to carbon used in enhanced oil recovery or converted into products, up from the prior $60/ton utilization value. This shift sets the stage for widescale deployment, but only if the underlying technology gets significantly cheaper.
High energy requirements are the biggest cost drivers for carbon capture. Many companies today use amine-based solvents to capture and retain CO2. But amines have a costly downside: substantial heat energy is needed to extract the pure CO2 after it's been captured. This energy requirement can account for a significant portion of the total cost of carbon capture.
Caravel's novel protein engineering platform unlocks efficient use of a different solvent: potassium bicarbonate. Replacing amines with potassium bicarbonate has the potential to cut carbon capture's energy requirements significantly, leading to a lower overall cost of capture.
Reducing the Cost of Enzymatic Processes, For Carbon Capture and Beyond
Scientists have recognized potassium bicarbonate's potential to reduce carbon capture costs for decades, but one factor has limited its use: to capture CO2 effectively, potassium bicarbonate needs robust enzymes and enzymatic processes. However, enzymatic technologies have remained too expensive for scaled use.
Caravel's goal is to make high-performing enzymes inexpensive to produce, making potassium bicarbonate cheaper than using amines. Others have tried this before, but Caravel's technology enables a new approach. "While others have tried teaching enzymes to swim, we're building the enzymes a boat and training them to sail. Our proprietary technology enables enzymes to do more than they could on their own," said Trevor Nicks, PhD, Founder and CEO of Caravel.
Momentum for Caravel
Caravel formally launched in October 2025 with the announcement of a $7.8 million grant from the National Science Foundation, recognizing its ability to deliver first-in-class products across DNA synthesis, animal health, and non-pollutive chemical manufacturing.
Caravel's platform unifies the traditionally fragmented protein discovery and delivery process into a single end-to-end system, addressing industry inefficiencies that have driven up costs and confined breakthroughs to academic labs. The company's first-of-its-kind bioengineering technology combines cell-free protein synthesis with bacterial spore display to accelerate cell-free directed evolution—a critical biomolecular engineering process—enabling the rapid creation and testing of millions of protein variants in parallel while generating the datasets needed to train advanced machine learning models.
Caravel has earned key validation from:
- Scientific peers: Caravel's collaborators include world-class researchers from Avery Bio, Caltech, Rutgers University, and Oregon State University.
- Strategic partners: Caravel recently joined the vHive Animal Health Incubator at the University of Surrey and initiated partnerships with Avery Bio and Rubi Labs.
- Investors: Caravel has previously raised venture funding from 2048 Ventures, The Venture Collective (TVC), Pioneer Fund, and Portland Seed Fund.
ABOUT CARAVEL BIO
Caravel is the first joint platform for protein discovery and delivery on a mission to expand the role of biology as a transformative industrial force. The company's technology uses new laboratory methods and machine learning to accelerate cell-free directed evolution—a critical biomolecular engineering process—to overcome longstanding industry bottlenecks and enable the creation of novel, scalable protein technologies. Caravel was selected for a $7.8M National Science Foundation grant in 2025 in collaboration with Avery Bio, Caltech, Rutgers University, and Oregon State University to create and scale first-in-class products across DNA synthesis, animal health, and non-pollutive chemical manufacturing. Learn more at www.caravel.bio.
Media Contact:
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SOURCE Caravel Bio
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