About Us
Fornia BioSolutions Inc. is a biotechnology research service company, specializing in the development of superior quality microbial and enzyme products for the agricultural, aquacultural, food processing, feed, household/personal care, and plastic recycling markets. Our research and development laboratory is located in Hayward, California, where we draw upon the brightest research minds in the San Francisco Bay Area. We work closely and collaboratively with our clients to produce next generation products within established markets, as well as novel products that will pioneer new markets. With the growing need for environmentally friendly solutions, our products provide a promising pathway to reduce the environmental impact of industrial processes and promote sustainable development.
Seasoned research experts
Founded in 2015, our client-oriented, multidisciplinary team of seasoned research experts has earned a reputation for producing high quality products, within a quick turnaround time, at a competitive cost. We provide a full range of industry-leading technologies for product development, from computational design/analysis, high-throughput strain/protein mutant construction, and high-throughput screening, to shake flask and fermentation validation.
Our on-site 2L/15L fermentation capacity and access to high quality outsourcing demonstration-scale and commercial-scale fermentation and product manufacturing facilities results in a high success rate, when scaling up from new strain development to full commercial fermentation. Our advanced strain improvement, enzyme directed evolution, and high throughput screening technologies enable us to develop optimal microbial strains for improved bioindustrial products.
Dr. Janet (Jie) Yang
Dr. Janet (Jie) Yang is the Chief Operating Officer, Chief Technical Officer and Co-founder of Fornia BioSolutions Inc. Dr. Yang has over 15 years of experience in the Biotechnology space. She is a seasoned scientist and front-runner in synthetic biology whose vision is to successfully commercialize bio-based products using green chemistry. Her accolades include over 70 patents and peer reviewed articles in notable and eminent scientific journals.
Soon after receiving her bachelors in medicinal chemistry from Peking University, Dr. Yang moved to United States of America to pursue her Ph.D. in Pharmaceutical Sciences from University of Wisconsin, Madison. As a graduate student, she was entranced by the immense potential of directed evolution to modify various enzyme properties to suit plethora of industrial applications. The main body of her doctoral thesis entailed evolving sugar modifying enzymes for synthesis of clinically important natural products. On receiving her doctoral degree in 2006, she joined Codexis Inc, a pioneer in directed enzyme evolution. For over 9 years, Dr. Yang had directed multidisciplinary research groups in Codexis solve challenging problems from lab scale to commercialization.
In 2015, Dr. Yang co-founded Fornia BioSolutions Inc. The core technology of Fornia is based on her in-depth understanding and expertise in synthetic biology and her confidence in the limitless power of directed evolution. She is an ardent believer in green chemistry and constantly thinks of making the environment clean by inventing novel methodologies to combat pollutions/ detrimental effects of the air, soil, and water.
In her free time, Dr. Yang likes to travel to familiarize herself with world cultures and history, cook, and follow world politics.
Dr. Shirley Zhang
Dr. Shirley Zhang is the Co-founder and VP of Bioinformatics and Automation at Fornia BioSolutions Inc. Dr. Zhang is a data scientist and leader with more than 20 years’ experience in bioproduct research and development. She has been a key driver in developing and implementing novel modeling techniques to challenging projects. She comes with a strong expertise in big data analysis and machine learning. Her expertise in novel gene discovery and creating unique algorithms, forms the basis of the strong foundation of both companies.
After receiving her Ph.D degree from UCLA in the area of Computational Chemistry and Biochemistry in 2006, Dr. Zhang did her postdoc from UCLA, UCSD and later from Burnham Institute for Medical Research (La Jolla, CA). She then joined Codexis Inc in 2006 as a Bioinformatics Scientist. While at Codexis, Dr. Zhang mentored and guided several critical and complex projects to achieve successful completions. Her skills were highly regarded at Codexis, a pioneer company in protein engineering. She later joined Intrexon Inc in 2016 as a Senior Scientist for the company to establish its protein engineering platform. In 2016, Dr. Zhang joined Fornia BioSolutions and since then have successfully led the bioinformatics and automation team there.
Dr. Zhang’s extraordinary scientific accomplishments include more than 110 peer-reviewed publications and patents, as well as numerous prestigious awards. In her free time, Dr. Zhang enjoys reading scientific journals. She is an ardent follower of healthy lifestyle and fitness. She also enjoys cooking and continuously explores options of bringing creativity to her culinary skills.
Dr. Goutami Banerjee
Dr. Goutami Banerjee is the Co-founder, Vice President of Business Development and Sr. Director of Microbiology, Molecular Biology and Biochemistry of Fornia BioSolutions Inc. The company focusses on discovering and improving bio-based products for improving everyday life, using their proprietary AI, library design, and HTP screening platforms.
Dr. Banerjee got her Ph.D. in Genetics and completed her postdoctoral studies from Great Lakes Bioenergy Research Center under Michigan State University. During her postdoc, she established an automated platform called “GENPLAT” which is recognized as a state of art tool for evaluating enzyme cocktails in biomass degradation. Soon after completing her postdoctoral research, Dr. Banerjee joined Codexis Inc., as a scientist and led several projects to successful completion. In 2015 together with a small group of very talented scientists she started her journey with Fornia. At Fornia, she is heavily focused on developing some of its core technologies and production platforms.
Dr. Banerjee has over 20 years of experience working on strain development and protein chemistry and has more than 10 years’ experience in second gen biofuel and high value product generated from lignocellulosic biomass. Her accolade includes more than 50 peer reviewed articles, filed, and granted patents. She is also an active reviewer for many scientific journals.
In her free time, Dr. Banerjee enjoys reading about world politics and world history.