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University of Wyoming

UW Technologies Available for Licensing

Technology Disclosure: 94-002 A Receptor For A Bacillus Thuringiensis Toxin

 

The University of Wyoming owns a large suite of intellectual property relating to the field of transgenic crop plants.  In particular, we have patents pending and issued across the world on the genes and corresponding proteins found in many insect pests that make the insect susceptible to a common biological pesticide – Bacillus thuringiensis (Bt) crystal proteins.

Background

Controlling the negative impact of voracious insect pests on crop plants is a huge market, sustaining several multi-billion dollar companies that produce pesticides (like Monsanto, Sygenta, DuPont, etc.).  More recently, the agricultural industry (including these companies) is using biotechnological solutions to control insect pests.  Today’s “biotech” pesticides are based on the Bacillus thuringiensis (Bt) bacterium.

Bt is a naturally occurring bacterium common in soils throughout the world.  Since its discovery in 1911, farmers have been sprinkling preparations of the bacteria on their plants to ward off and kill insect pests that feed on the plants.  More recent research has refined the application of the pesticide with the discovery of the specific genes and proteins in the bacterium that act as the pesticide.  These genes and proteins are known as “crystal” or “cry” proteins.

Knowing the sequence of the cry genes has allowed researchers to insert the cry genes into crop plants using modern molecular biological techniques.  As such, crop plants produce their own pesticide and no longer need to be exogenously sprayed by the farmer.  Cost savings to the farmer are enormous and plantings of biotech acres worldwide have exploded.

 

 

University of Wyoming’s Offering

Researchers at the University of Wyoming have isolated the specific proteins in the gut of insect pests that bind to Bt cry proteins.  These proteins in the insects are called “Bt receptors”.  Knowing the biological details of the Bt receptors (e.g. primary, secondary and tertiary structure, antigenicity, etc.) allows researchers to discover and design new cry proteins that could increase the spectrum of insects affected, or increase the efficacy of the Bt protein as a pesticide (among other things).

The University of Wyoming has six separate lines of intellectual property on this technology represented in 29 filings across the world.

 

 

If you would like to learn more about this technology, or bring it in-house for evaluation or commercial uses, please contact the director of the Wyoming Research Products Center, Davona Douglass. We realize that today’s agricultural biotechnology companies have many choices when it comes to the evaluation of potential gene targets. The University of Wyoming is signing very reasonable research licenses for this technology so that its ultimate transfer to industry is as simplified and streamlined as possible. Please call for details.