Dupont Industrial Biosciences officially opened a renovated building at the Experimental Station Friday. The business was previously scattered amongst several buildings on the campus.
The renovated facility, now the “global business headquarters,” for Industrial Biosciences, houses 280 employees working mostly on R&D for products ranging from stain-cleaning enzymes for laundry detergents to probiotic microbes used in animal feed.
Dr. Tanja Gruber, a senior staff scientist with DuPont Industrial Biosciences, says the renovated building has new equipment to advance this research.
“We now have robots that can pick colonies, dispense them into different plates and do analyses on them. And then these robots are actually placed in these huge anaerobic chambers that mimic the environment of the guts of humans and animals,” she said. “Having this equipment really allows us to get results a lot faster.”
Marc Doyle, chief operating officer of DowDuPont Specialty Products Division, which includes Industrial Biosciences, says the building’s new technology makes the division even more competitive.
“This facility and the capabilities gives our talented employees, our diverse employees, the tools they need to continue to keep up with the demands of the world,” he said.
DuPont Industrial Biosciences grew through DuPont’s acquisition of Danisco and its merger with Dow.
The building was previously occupied by agriculture company Dupont Pioneer, and was renovated for Industrial Biosciences as part of Dupont’s $200 million investment in the Experimental Station.
