ABOUT ME:
Richard Peet

SUSTAINABLE PRODUCTION OF NOVEL NATURAL PRODUCTS

I co-founded two companies that I believe will have a very positive impact on human health. Beaumarchais Bio, Inc. manufactures prebiotics for the B2B (business to business sector) to improve human health and wellbeing through proper nourishment of microbes in the microbiome. An expert panel of the International Scientific Association of Probiotics and Prebiotics (ISAPP) define prebiotics as “a substrate that is selectively utilized by host microorganisms conferring a health benefit.” The trillions of microorganisms, such as bacteria, viruses, fungi, and archaea that live in and on our bodies are called the microbiota. The collection of genomes, or genetic blueprints, of these microbes is called the microbiome.

A prebiotic must offer a health benefit to the human host that is selectively mediated by the microbiota. The ISAPP definition expands the concept of prebiotics to include non-carbohydrate compounds and involvement of body sites other than the gastrointestinal tract. The same ISAPP expert panel concluded that there was sufficient scientific evidence to conclude that the health effects of prebiotics are significant. They include benefits to: (1) the gastrointestinal tract including inhibition of pathogens and immune stimulation, (2) cardio metabolism including reduction in blood lipid levels and reversal of insulin resistance, (3) mental health including metabolites that influence brain function, energy, and cognition, and (4) bone including mineral availability, among others.

Beaumarchais (www.beaumarchais.bio) produces three prebiotics: oligofructose, inulin, a proprietary whole food chicory fiber ingredient called FibreChicc™, and sells them B2B. Its goal is to provide prebiotic-containing foods that contribute to reduction in the epidemic of
chronic diseases including obesity, cardiovascular disease, diabetes, and more.

Formulate Bioscience, Inc. (www.formulate.bio) is a novel integrated bioplatform company providing sustainable, scalable, and cost-efficient means of biomanufacturing complex natural products and proprietary natural product analogs. Formulate offers an integrated proprietary triad of chemical, biocatalytic, and cellular technology solutions to natural product biomanufacturing. Among Formulate’s products are terpenes, including cannabinoid compounds that can be used to probe the function of the human endocannabinoid system. Some of these cannabinoids have significant therapeutic potential.

INTELLECTUAL PROPERTY PROTECTION AND COMMERCIALIZATION of cutting edge technologies

For almost 20 years as an attorney and partner at the AmLaw 100 firm Foley & Lardner, LLP, I drew on my scientific background to help companies to protect their inventions with patents, build businesses, and bring new products to market to improve healthcare and the food supply. I served as Chair of Foley’s Biotechnology and Chemistry Practice Group and Intercational Business Team. My clients included leading pharmaceutical, biotechnology, chemical, agricultural, and food compances including Novartis, Chiron, Genentech, Amgen, Unilever, Pioneer Hi-Bred International, DuPont, DSM, Keygene, and J.R. Simplot. Among my
areas of expertise in patent law is the protection of plant-related inventions. With Mark Janis and Herb Jervis, I co-authored the book Intellectual Property Law of Plants published by Oxford University Press.

At Beaumarchais Consulting, LLC (beaumarchaisconsulting.com), we provide intellectual property consulting services to biotechnology, chemical, pharmaceutical, food, and agricultural companies. We assist with strategies for building an appropriately designed patent portfolio, patentability analysis, freedom-to-operate assessments, and trademark strategy.

AFFILIATE PROFESSOR AT GEORGE MASON UNIVERSITY

For 20 years I have served as an affiliate professor in the Business Department and School of Systems Biology where I teach courses in intellectual property law and biology.

SCIENTIFIC RESEARCH AT BERKELEY

My Ph.D. research at the University of California at Berkeley contributed to a seminal finding in uncovering pathogen-associated molecular pattern-triggered immunity (PTI) in plants. In PTI, plants recognize conserved molecular patterns common to many pathogens such as those found in bacterial flagellin. The recognition is mediated by pattern recognition receptors located on the surface of plant cells. PTI provides a basal level of resistance against a wide range of
pathogens.

Drs. Nickolas Panopoulos and Peter Lindgren and I identified genes in the plant pathogenic bacterium Pseudomonas syringae pv. phaseolicola (Psp) that control induction of a hypersensitive response in non-host plants and pathogenicity on bean plants. The plant hypersensitive response is a localized, rapid cell death response that occurs in plants when they detect the presence of an invading pathogen.

We also identified genes in the bacterium Psp that code for the enzymes that produce a toxin, phaseolotoxin, that kills plant cells. Phaseolotoxin inhibits the enzyme ornithine carbamyltransferase (OCTase) in the arginine biosynthetic pathway. How can the Psp bacterium be resistant to its own toxin? We determined that the Psp genome contains two copies of OCTase gene. One of these genes codes for an OCTase enzyme that is resistant to phaseolotoxin.

The scientific and business skills I learned at Berkeley have been extremely helpful to me throughout my career as a patent attorney and entrepreneur. I studied the molecular basis of a plant-microbe interaction in Psp, was exposed to intellectual property protection of inventions and their commercialization, and learned about sustainable production of natural products such as phaseolotoxin in the bacterium Psp.

I am not a physician and the content of this blog is not intended as medical advice.