Dyadic International Inc. was founded in 1979 by CEO Mark Emalfarb, back in the days when the process of making stonewashed jeans made the transition from stones to biotechnology. Mr. Emalfarb, a former University of Iowa wrestler and communications student, was working in the stone washing industry when pumice stones were used to make the jeans. He realized the full potential of industrial enzymes while watching the denim industry make the switch, and became a distributor of industrial enzymes for companies like Novozymes and Genencor. He eventually decided to go into business for himself and began looking for his own enzymes.
Dyadic is a publically traded company, trading under DYAI.PK at around $2.20 in early 2010. The head office is located in Jupiter Florida (USA) and the company has a research subsidiary in the Netherlands, in addition to two manufacturing facilities and a number of research collaborators.
With the help of a Russian research team, Mr. Emalfarb’s company discovered and developed Dyadic's patented C1 platform technology. C1 is actually a strain of fungus called Chrysosporium lucknowense. It was found in Russia and grows in alkaline soil. Chrysosporium MIGHT be classified as an extremophile, in that one of the many advantages to C1 enzymes is they survive a broad range of temperature and pH. Cellulases are a popular group of enzymes for industrial uses, but many cellulases only function in neutral pH. C1 cellulases can be used to aid digestion of pulp sludge in the paper industry, because it survives the alkaline pre-treatment where traditionally-used industrial fungal strains, like Trichoderma, will not. The C1 strain produces many other useful enzymes, some of which might be found in everyday enzyme products in the home.
Dyadic has developed the C1 system to be easily cloned, and genetically altered for tailor-made enzyme mixtures. The cells contain highly characterized insertion sites for cloning new genes, and can be quickly engineered for a specific purpose. Knock-out techniques (i.e. of proteases that might destroy proteins before they are excreted) make it easy to enhance production of desired proteins, and programmable promoters allow for selective control of transcription and overexpression of genes. The system can also be optimized for special fermentation conditions, to cater to different manufacturing needs.