Seed Health and The Two Frontiers Project Join Forces to Tap 'Extreme' Microbes for Novel Solutions to the Climate Crisis

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Apr 22, 2024, 08:15 ET

The initiative focuses on the discovery and application of microbes to enhance carbon sequestration, protect and restore vital ecosystems, and transform CO₂ into sustainable products.

LOS ANGELES, April 22, 2024 /PRNewswire/ -- Seed Health, a microbiome science company, together with The Two Frontiers Project (2FP), a non-profit research organization dedicated to studying life in extreme environments, today announced a new initiative leveraging microbes for novel solutions to the climate crisis. Supported by SeedLabs, Seed Health's environmental division, this collaboration will discover microorganisms that thrive in extreme, CO₂-rich environments and use their unique biochemistry to enhance carbon sequestration, restore vital ecosystems, and transform CO₂ into sustainable products.

Extremophile Microbes for Next-Gen Carbon Tech
CO₂ is warming the planet at record levels—50% in less than 200 years due to human activities—destroying critical ecosystems and leading to an unprecedented increase in ocean acidification. CO₂ levels today are higher than at any point in human history. Last year, on a landmark expedition supported by SeedLabs, the 2FP team discovered a novel volcanic microbe exceptionally efficient at consuming CO₂, unlocking new potential in carbon capture technology. This latest initiative builds on that discovery, mining extreme environments for beneficial microorganisms and exploring broader applications of these microbes to mitigate climate change impacts. Dr. Braden Tierney, Founder and Executive Director of 2FP, leads this effort.

"By placing early-stage applied research at the core of its climate strategy, Seed is pioneering a path that others should follow—one that is genuinely committed to discovering next-generation solutions to climate change," said Dr. Tierney. "The urgency of our climate crisis means we don't have the luxury of time. Our partnership with SeedLabs enables us to accelerate our efforts, tapping into the extraordinary potential of microbial evolution for a new frontier in climate tech."

This partnership will explore microbes' multifaceted roles in protecting ecosystem health and advancing carbon capture and upcycling technologies, beginning with these three programs:

Carbon Capture This program will focus on isolating microbial communities with high carbon sequestration capacities and studying coral-associated microbiomes that foster resilience to high-CO₂ conditions. The first expedition will take the team to two volcanic islands off the coast of Japan to cultivate and sample microbes from diverse environments such as oceanic CO₂ seeps, volcanic fields, and coral ecosystems.
CO₂ Upcycling for Sustainable Products Under the guidance of Dr. James Henriksen, Co-Founder and Director of R&D of 2FP and scientist at Colorado State University, this program focuses on developing processes to convert CO₂ into sustainable products, such as sugars and oil-based compounds, like omega-3 fatty acids and even biofuels. This conversion process not only mitigates atmospheric CO₂ but also produces sustainable alternatives to petrochemical derivatives, reducing the carbon footprint associated with their production.
Coral Ecosystem Restoration Building on the advanced shotgun sequencing techniques developed with Krista Ryon, Co-Founder and Director of Operations of 2FP, the team will intensify efforts to protect coral reefs, which are critically vulnerable to ocean acidification and climate-induced bleaching. Using these technologies, the initiative will guide the creation of next-generation microbial therapies to enhance coral resilience and promote restoration. The team will sequence and analyze microbiota from healthy, diseased, and resilient coral colonies worldwide, identifying and culturing beneficial microbes that can prevent reef loss and improve coral growth and recovery.

A Commitment to Sustainable Innovation
"This collaboration is a prime example of our commitment to pioneering sustainable environmental solutions," said Seed Health Co-Founder Raja Dhir. "By harnessing the unique capabilities of microbes, we can address critical aspects of the climate crisis, from enhancing ecosystem resilience to innovating carbon utilization strategies."

Ara Katz, Co-Founder of Seed Health, concluded, "We are committed to evolving how sustainability is defined and realized. In an era of greenwashing, our world of the microbiome offers a profound opportunity to expand the definition of sustainability beyond traditional metrics like packaging and certifications."

Learn more about SeedLabs—seed.com/seedlabs
Learn more about The Two Frontiers Project—twofrontiers.org

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About Seed Health
Seed Health is a microbiome science company pioneering innovations in probiotics and living medicines to impact human and planetary health. Founded to realize the potential of the microbiome, our platform enables the translation of breakthrough science across a portfolio targeting health outcomes from infancy to aging. Our consumer innovations are commercialized under Seed®—an award-winning, science-first brand known for clinically validated innovations in probiotics. Our pipeline encompasses both indication-specific and preventive applications for gastrointestinal and digestive health, women's health, skin, pediatrics, mental health, metabolic function, and nutrition. Our environmental research is conducted under SeedLabs, which was founded to advance novel bacterial interventions to enhance biodiversity and restore ecosystems impacted by human activity.

About SeedLabs
SeedLabs is the environmental research division of microbiome science company S ee d Health. Founded on the notion of One Health—that human health and environmental health are intertwined and interdependent—SeedLabs advances emergent environmental research and microbial innovations to recover ecosystems impacted by human activity and address some of the greatest challenges presented by climate change.

Current SeedLabs projects encompass microbial innovations for honeybee preservation, coral reef regeneration, and plastic waste management.

About The Two Frontiers Project
The Two Frontiers Project (2FP) is a non-profit scientific research organization dedicated to exploring life's capabilities in extreme environments, with an emphasis on humanity's greatest frontiers: the oceans and space. They are a team of international scientists spanning industry and academia with deep expertise in Next-Generation-Sequencing and precision microbial culturomics. With an emphasis on looking for novel solutions to climate change and pollutant bioremediation, they lead expeditions to all corners of the world, sampling, sequencing, and culturing microbes, storing all of their data and collected biological samples in a "living database" for use by the academic research community.

Current 2FP initiatives include carbon sequestration, coral reef restoration, and sustainable agriculture development. They additionally design and lead courses to teach scientists and the public methods for sampling and understanding the diversity of microbial life.

About Climate Change
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SOURCE Seed Health