Divergence Inc.

Website Links

Description

Divergence, a world leader in the application of comparative and functional genomics to agriculture and infectious disease, is dedicated to the discovery of highly effective and ecologically sound strategies for parasite control.The Company's initial focus is on the critical unmet need to control plant, animal, and human parasitic nematodes (commonly referred to as roundworms). Nematodes are one of the major agricultural pests in the world, causing significant damage to dozens of major crops. Current nematicides are environmentally dangerous, expensive, and difficult to use. Nematodes are also major pathogens of humans, companion animals, and livestock causing a range of diseases including hookworm, lymphatic filariasis, and heartworm. Divergence's innovative discovery methods can also be applied to other pests, such as insects, and infectious disease-causing organisms including protozoan parasites and fungal pathogens.One of the major barriers to the discovery of new methods of parasite control has been discovering molecules that are selective for the infecting organism rather than general toxins. Achieving selectivity has been a particular challenge for eukaryotic and especially metazoan pathogens such as nematodes (roundworms) and arthropods (including insects). Despite millions of years of evolutionary separation, metazoan still have much of their cellular structures and core molecular machinery in common, including neuronal and muscular physiology and most characterized biochemical and signal transduction pathways. Most efficacious molecules to emerge from whole-organism screens in recent decades have exhibited cross-toxicity with the host or other non-target organisms.

Products & services

Similar companies nearby