Originally founded by Dr Joseph Rollins (now at NREL: National Renewable Energy Center), Gate Fuels, Inc. had been developing microbial and cell-free platform technologies to enable low-cost production of biochemicals and biofuels. The firm was combining enzyme engineering, metabolic engineering and synthetic biology to develop recombinant Bacillus strains capable of converting non-food biomass into value-added chemical compounds, such as lactic acid. Gate Fuels had proprietary strains of Bacillus that provided a path to profitability for biomass sugars producers, and a competitive advantage to lactic acid manufacturers. The firm was subsequently acquired,
