Mapping the patent landscape of synthetic biology for fine chemical production pathways

Pablo Carbonell (1) , Abdullah Gok (2, 3) , Philip Shapira (1, 4, 5) , Jean-Loup Faulon (6, 7)

1 Manchester Centre for Fine and Specialty Chemicals - Manchester Institute of Biotechnology (SYNBIOCHEM)
2 Manchester Centre for Fine and Specialty Chemicals - Manchester Institute of Biotechnology (SYNBIOCHEM)
3 Manchester Institute of Biotechnology - Alliance Manchester Business School
4 Manchester Institute of Innovation Research - Alliance Manchester Business School
5 School of Public Policy
6 MICALIS - MICrobiologie de l'ALImentation au Service de la Santé
7 Université Paris-Saclay

A goal of synthetic biology bio-foundries is to innovate through an iterative design/build/test/learn pipeline. In assessing the value of new chemical production routes, the intellectual property (IP) novelty of the pathway is important. Exploratory studies can be carried using knowledge of the patent/IP landscape for synthetic biology and metabolic engineering. In this paper, we perform an assessment of pathways as potential targets for chemical production across the full catalogue of reachable chemicals in the extended metabolic space of chassis organisms, as computed by the retrosynthesis-based algorithm RetroPath. Our database for reactions processed by sequences in heterologous pathways was screened against the PatSeq database, a comprehensive collection of more than 150M sequences present in patent grants and applications. We also examine related patent families using Derwent Innovations. This large-scale computational study provides useful insights into the IP landscape of synthetic biology for fine and specialty chemicals production.

Mots clés: intellectual property; synthetic biology; chemicals

Mots clés: brevet; propriété intellectuelle; biologie synthétique; algorithme de calcul; base de données; produit chimique

Domaines: Sciences du Vivant [q-bio]

Pablo Carbonell, Abdullah Gok, Philip Shapira, Jean-Loup Faulon. Mapping the patent landscape of synthetic biology for fine chemical production pathways. Microbial Biotechnology, 2016, 9 (5), pp.687-695. ⟨10.1111/1751-7915.12401⟩. ⟨hal-01607654⟩