US Patent Issued to Pioneer Hi-Bred International on April 14 for "Insecticidal variant CRY1B polypeptides having improved activity spectrum and uses thereof" (California Inventors)

ALEXANDRIA, Va., April 15 -- United States Patent no. 12,600,982, issued on April 14, was assigned to Pioneer Hi-Bred International Inc. (Johnston, Iowa).

"Insecticidal variant CRY1B polypeptides having improved activity spectrum and uses thereof" was invented by Caroline Horn (Los Altos, Calif.), Sabina Lau (Cupertino, Calif.), Michi Izumi Willcoxon (Palo Alto, Calif.), Takashi Yamamoto (Dublin, Calif.) and Yi Zheng (Newark, Calif.).

According to the abstract* released by the U.S. Patent & Trademark Office: "The disclosure provides nucleic acids, and variants and fragments thereof, derived from strains of Bacillus thuringiensis encoding variant polypeptides having increased pesticidal activity against insect pests, including Lepidoptera ...