US Patent Issued to Kimberly-Clark Worldwide on Oct. 21 for "Optimization of a thermophilic PHB depolymerase for industrial applications" (Georgia Inventor)

ALEXANDRIA, Va., Oct. 28 -- United States Patent no. 12,447,514, issued on Oct. 21, was assigned to Kimberly-Clark Worldwide Inc. (Neenah, Wis.).

"Optimization of a thermophilic PHB depolymerase for industrial applications" was invented by Stephen Quirk (Alpharetta, Ga.).

According to the abstract* released by the U.S. Patent & Trademark Office: "The present invention relates to a method for treatment of polyhydroxyalkanoate (PHA) containing post-consumer product, the method comprising contacting a post-consumer product with a polypeptide that can catalyze degradation of the PHA, the contact taking place at a temperature at least 45deg C. In a specific embodiment, the poly peptide is a wild-type PHA depolymerase expressed by a thermophili...