Chicago, IL (March 16, 2016) – zuChem, Inc., an innovative supplier of glycochemicals and specialized sugars for the food ingredients, fine chemicals and related industries, today announced that it has been awarded a Phase I Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) grant by the National Institutes of Health (NIH). The grant, led by Principal Investigator Micah Shepherd, will support development of new fermentative production methods for L-fucose and other rare sugar products of interest to the life sciences industry.
L-fucose is one of the most important biologically relevant sugars, commonly found as part of human glycans and glycolipids. For example, it is an important component of several human milk oligosaccharides (HMOs), a class of molecules believed to play an important role in infant immune and cognitive development. L-fucose is also utilized as a building block for the synthesis of complex antiviral and anticancer pharmaceuticals. Despite the importance of L-fucose, it can be prohibitively expensive and not readily available in ton quantities for commercial applications. This grant is designed to solve this problem by producing L-fucose through a fermentation route rather than by synthetic chemical means or by extraction from limited natural sources.
zuChem has previously been awarded SBIR grants from the NIH to support development of novel methods to produce fucosylated human milk oligosaccharides (HMOs), including 2’-fucosyllactose and 3'-fucosyllactose, and the key intermediates necessary for their synthesis, such as GDP-fucose. This additional Phase I SBIR grant on the production of L-fucose complements the Company’s ongoing HMO synthesis program. It will also support zuChem’s expansion of its process technology platform in to additional areas of pharmaceutical interest, in particular to enable broader use of L-fucose and other rare sugars as pharmaceutical building blocks.
About zuChem, Inc.
zuChem, Inc., headquartered in Chicago, Illinois, develops and commercializes innovative green, renewable manufacturing processes to produce unique carbohydrates and glycochemicals (varieties of specialized sugars) for human health and nutrition. The Company’s proprietary fermentation technology platform allows it to inexpensively produce a variety of specialty sweeteners, pharmaceutical intermediates, nutritional prebiotics and other products using renewable chemicals as raw materials at commercial scale. Please visit www.zuchem.com or contact info@zuchem.com for more information.
