Maxygen Relaunches in Sunnyvale to Offer Well-established Molecular Breeding Technology with New Collaborative Vision
The new Maxygen brings together scientists experienced in the application of molecular breeding paired with an accomplished leader in contract manufacturing to offer custom directed evolution programs across all sectors of biotech.
SUNNYVALE, Calif., Feb. 20, 2018 /PRNewswire/ -- Maxygen is pleased to announce the availability of the molecular breeding directed evolution platform to the biotechnology industry on a fee-for-service basis. This approach to improving protein function has broad applicability with particular relevance to the fields of synthetic biology, metabolic engineering, gene therapy, immunotherapy, and gene editing.
Molecular breeding was invented by Dr. Willem "Pim" Stemmer in the early 1990s. The technology is an elegant laboratory adaptation of the natural evolutionary process of homologous recombination. It was the basis for the formation of the original Maxygen Inc., which was dissolved in 2013 after spinning off numerous programs and companies.
The new Maxygen was established in 2017. Dr. Robert Whalen serves as the Company's Chief Scientific Officer along with Ms. Janelle Muranaka as Director of Operations. The Team brings together scientists with decades of combined molecular breeding expertise as well as entrepreneurs and investors in biomanufacturing and contract services including Mr. Michael Chambers, CEO of Aldevron (Fargo, ND).
Maxygen's technology is used to create proteins with new functions as well as superior versions of existing products. The Company provides high quality services to clients in the form of combinatorial libraries of variants, assay development, and identification of improved proteins that meet specific target product profiles. Maxygen's current contracts focus on areas including the development of improved gene therapy products, more accurate gene editing enzymes, and improved biomanufacturing processes.
"I had the good fortune to learn how to apply molecular breeding during a period of remarkable creativity by Pim Stemmer and those he assembled around him at the original Maxygen," stated Whalen. "We now have a new opportunity to continue working with this technology, which still has much to offer to the industry."
"After years of hands-on application of the molecular breeding technology, I came to appreciate the beauty and simplicity of what it has to offer. In today's standards of protein engineering there is a push towards bioinformatics and automation, but I believe the value of utilizing naturally sourced, high quality, and unbiased genetic diversity to efficiently create proteins with new and improved functions cannot be overlooked," said Director of Operations, Janelle Muranaka.
Maxygen LLC is located in Sunnyvale, CA. Their services include the molecular breeding core technology with associated screening capabilities, as well as additional expertise in molecular biology and protein sciences. A diverse skill set allows for extended R&D outsourcing capabilities to provide full service offerings from project strategy and design to the execution of a complete discovery program.
Contact:
Janelle Muranaka, Director of Operations,
[email protected]
Maxygen
725 San Aleso Avenue, Suite 2
Sunnyvale, CA 94085
[email protected]
www.maxygen.com
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SOURCE Maxygen LLC
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