Zymergen acquires Radiant

Bay Area industrial biotechnology start-up Zymergen has acquired Radiant Genomics, a functional metagenomics research firm. Functional metagenomics uses libraries of genomes from many species of microbes, commonly from environmental sampling, and screens the diverse DNA samples for specific genes or traits that can produce natural products of interest. In contrast, most biotechnology products today are made with the help of a small number of microbes that can be grown in the lab. Zymergen plans to integrate the libraries with its machine-learning and manufacturing platform.