The U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) Joint Genome Institute has awarded Bridgestone Americas a research grant to advance its optimisation of guayule, a drought resistant, desert shrub that shows promise as a local source of natural rubber for tyre production. Bridgestone has spent more than a decade researching guayule rubber for use in tyres.
The dream of securing natural rubber supplies in the vicinity of production facilities and reducing dependency upon hevea rubber plantations has preoccupied Bridgestone Corporation for the past decade. Early in 2018 it announced a collaboration with genomic big data company NRGene to advance the commercialisation of guayule, and today Bridgestone shared the results of this four-year project. The combined effort has resulted in the partners successfully assembling a specific guayule genome.
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Bridgestone Corporation