Prokazyme is a spin-off from Prokaria (now part of Matis) that sells novel thermostable enzymes for research, diagnostic and industrial testing purposes on the internet. Our goal is to utilize the extensive know-how and expertice built up in Iceland for the last two decades on extremophile genomics and enzyme discovery. This includes vast extising gene databases made by Prokaria and still being maintained and expanded by Matis and Prokazyme. This knowledge base is highly valuable and internationally competitive.
A unique and world-leading position in thermophilic viral enzymes was build up within Prokaria in 1998-2006 with several major discoveries made. The viral biosphere is now getting an increased interest as the last big frontier of life. Matis-Prokaria is currently operating a GS-FLX 454 sequencing machine from Roche and this gives Prokazyme a unique opportunity to mine the under-utilized, thermophilic viral metagenome in Icelandic hot springs. Prokazyme already holds a large bank of sequence information including many bacteriophage genomes and extensive collection of unique DNA polymerases and other novel molecular enzymes.