Seattle, December 30, 2010 - DuPont business Pioneer Hi-Bred and Arzeda Corporation have reached the first milestone in a technology collaboration to develop new traits to increase agriculture productivity.

A novel enzyme developed by Arzeda is showing activity toward a trait of interest for two core crops for Pioneer – corn and soybean. This is another tool in Pioneer’s growing technology toolbox that is helping to extend its leadership position in gene discovery and bring new crop solutions forward.

"We are excited to see the results of the hard work in the joint effort between Arzeda and Pioneer Hi-Bred; particularly, the successful application of Arzeda's technology to agricultural problems, validating our technology for commercial applications," said Eric Althoff, co-founder of Arzeda. "It is a credit to Pioneer that they are continually working on the cutting edge with innovative technologies."

Unlimited by enzymes found in nature, Arzeda’s groundbreaking technology enables engineering enzymes for virtually any reaction. Our process integrates the power of chemical catalysis, the high selectivity of biological macromolecules, and the speed of computational design to engineer novel enzymes not available in nature.

While advances in enzyme engineering have enabled the expansion in scope and applications of enzymes in various industries, there remain many desirable chemical reactions for which no natural enzymes exist. Arzeda’s computational design methodology Arzetta™, begins with the chemical reaction of interest and generates the ideal catalytic machinery around it. This active site is subsequently combined with the protein of choice to result in a preferred custom-made enzyme.

Harnessing computational power to rapidly design and screen in silico allows for the timely exploration of nearly infinite protein libraries and enables solutions that are currently inaccessible with traditional enzyme engineering techniques, thus opening new business opportunities.