Newark, Delaware -- May 16, 2007 -- Athena Biotechnologies, Inc. has won a Department of Energy Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) grant award to discover new microbes that can reduce the cost of ethanol production.  This project will develop an energy efficient, simplified, high temperature ethanol production process which will result in a 10% reduction in the cost of bio-ethanol through discovery of new microbes that both live and produce ethanol at high temperatures.  Additionally, the project will target bacteria that produce ethanol from cellulose as well as from food sources such as corn so that the impact of ethanol production on the cost of food can be reduced.

According to Dr. Barry Marrs, Chief Technology Officer at Athena Biotechnologies, Inc.,  “Our patented technologies including Quorum Sensing Quenching™ give us at least a ten-fold improvement in the opportunity to culture and isolate novel hyper-thermophiles for increased energy efficiency in ethanol production versus current methodologies.  “We look forward to culturing these bacteria that produce ethanol at temperatures in excess of 80○C so that the production cost of ethanol can be significantly reduced from the current levels”.

Athena Biotechnologies, Inc. is a biotechnology company located at Delaware Technology Park in Newark, Delaware, providing technologies for the medical diagnostics, energy, agricultural and pharmaceutical industries.

http://www.athenabio.com

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