At the (George) Gilder Telecosm Forum we learn that Evogene, Ltd. (TASE:EVGN), a genetic engineering company, claims that its Israeli castor oil plant-based biofuel product is suitable in composition and chemistry as a raw material for producing bio-jet fuel. Evogene's US subsidiary is collaborating with NASA on to create jet fuel from plant oils.
The tests of the product were conducted by Honeywell International Inc.Co. (NYSE: HON) petrochemical and refining unit UOP LLC, which is now developing a range of biofuels for various uses.
Writes GEORGE GILDER,
"I am suspicious of any green energy breakthrough that depends for its appeal on low emissions of "greenhouse gasses." But Evogene is significant as an existence proof for the value of Compugen (CGEN) in silico platforms for drug discovery.
"In Israel [last week], one of the most impressive public companies I saw
(among 12 private companies) was CGEN, where my host Jeffrey Grossman introduced me to the management. In the last year they have launched four further platforms,
the last two in March and April of 2010. Martin Gerstel has reportedly gone euphoric on the company's prospects, talking of not 10X but orders of magnitude larger potential beyond 10X and predicting that half of all the future pharmaceuticals in the industry will be based on his silicon genetic models and platforms.
"This company seems binary: either its researchers have essentially leapfrogged the entire world of academic biology to make the first reliable models of the DNA to ribosome to peptide cascade, including the vagaries of protein plectics, or they will come a cropper like all the previous DNA modelers.
"Take your pick. Evogene offers evidence for the breakthrough theory. But
human beings are not exactly a form of plant life (outside the EPA) and
the assumption that the commonality of DNA between different species and
phyla bespeak a commonality of disease etiology has yet to bear fruit (or
nuts).
As a holder of CGEN, I am keeping my chromosomes crossed."
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