SBIR Phase I: Enzymatic Synthesis of Insect Pheromones

The broader impact/commercial potential of this Small Business Innovation Research Phase I project is an insect pest control breakthrough for the agricultural industry. Provivi, Inc. (Provivi) intends to develop novel biosynthesis technology for producing insect pheromones, i.e. chemicals that insects use for communication. Pheromone based insect control can fulfill the following unmet needs: (1) safety, biodegradability, and leaving no residues on products (2) not interfering with beneficial insects (e.g. bees and ladybugs), (3) not resulting in insecticide resistance, (4) and serve as a complement to existing pest management strategies. While pheromones have been long recognized for their potential in crop protection, their high synthesis costs have prevented broad adoption. Provivi?s technology aims to enable a dramatically lower cost synthesis of pheromones. This has the potential to change how farmers control damaging insects by adopting pheromone solutions in favor of traditional insecticides. From a commercial perspective, by lowering the cost of synthesis, Provivi pheromone products can immediately enter existing pheromone markets, and ultimately penetrate markets for which currently only traditional insecticides are affordable to farmers. The objectives of this Phase I research program are (1) the demonstration of a biosynthetic approach to the synthesis of a class of insect pheromones, (2) the identification of enzymes with sufficient activity to warrant further development and, (3) quantifications of the biocatalysis performance for generating a process model of the proposed synthesis route. At the heart of the proposed pheromone synthesis route is a biocatalytic transformation that has not been described in the existing enzyme literature. This project aims to identify enzymes capable of supporting this novel reaction by screening members of enzyme families that are known to catalyze similar reactions. Using the best identified enzyme variant, this project will demonstrate the feasibility of the company's synthesis route by performing a gram-scale synthesis of an in-market insect pheromone. By performing the gram-scale synthesis, it will help to determine the biocatalyst reaction parameters including yield, productivity, product titer and byproduct titers. These parameters will allow the development of a detailed process model of the synthesis route and assess the synthesis cost reduction enabled by the proposed technology.