Monsanto develops protein design software

Monsanto Company (NYSE: MON) and Pasadena-based Protabit LLC, announced a two-year collaboration to develop new tools for protein design and optimization on 11th June.

All organisms produce a diverse set of proteins to express characteristic attributes, which in plants can include tolerance to drought and pests. Monsanto agricultural biotechnology researchers use high-throughput protein design and optimization technologies to rapidly design more effective proteins to confer beneficial traits in crops.

Development of improved software tools for protein design and optimization can help shorten the product discovery process. This would enable Monsanto to more quickly identify pipeline gene candidates in support of the companys sustainability goal of doubling yields in its core crops of corn, cotton, and soybeans by 2030, compared to a base year of 2000.

Protabit is a start-up company founded by Stephen Mayo, PhD, of the California Institute of Technology and Homme Hellinga, PhD, of Duke University. Both are leaders in the field of computational protein design and expect the software created by Protabit to have broad applicability as a protein improvement and discovery tool in biotechnology. Mayo said. "We look forward to collaborating with Monsanto on both the development of new methodology and its application to protein design projects that lead to new and/or improved products in the ag biotech arena."