The people and science behind Biolithica
Biolithica is developing microbe-enabled technologies to recover critical and precious metals. Its work pairs commercial leadership with university research.
Why Biolithica exists
As ore grades fall, more metal is left behind in tailings and low-grade deposits because recovering it costs more than it returns.
Biolithica, based in Vancouver, was founded on the premise that microbes can make some of that material worth processing. Rather than owning mines, the company develops recovery methods with research and industry partners and licenses them to the companies that run the operations.
“I’ve spent much of my career financing and advancing resource and technology ventures, and I saw enormous untapped potential at the intersection of biology and critical minerals. Biolithica was founded to turn that emerging science into practical technologies that can unlock new sources of critical minerals and change how we recover and separate them.”
Grounded in Cornell's microbe-mineral research
Biolithica has a sponsored research agreement with Cornell University, led by synthetic biologist Dr. Buz Barstow.
The collaboration gives Biolithica access to specialized expertise in microbial mineral processing and positions the company to leverage the Microbe Mineral Atlas, a complementary Barstow Lab initiative uncovering microbial genes and functions associated with mineral environments, metal mobilization and recovery.
The first phase focuses on developing high-throughput methods to discover microbial genes and proteins with useful metal-binding, separation and mobilization properties. Researchers can then evaluate promising biological functions against challenging mineral systems and real-world materials. This creates a path from microbial discovery to practical mineral-processing applications.
Who leads and advises Biolithica
Arness Cordick
Co-founder and Executive
Arness leads the development and commercialization of Biolithica's biological approaches to critical mineral recovery and separation. He works with Biolithica's academic, industry and technology partners on more efficient mineral processing and stronger critical mineral supply chains.
Dr. Douglas Bartlett
Strategic Advisor for Microbial Innovation
Doug is Professor Emeritus of Marine Microbial Genetics at Scripps Institution of Oceanography, UC San Diego, and a Fellow of the American Academy of Microbiology. He has spent decades studying microbial diversity, genetics and how microbes adapt to extreme environments. At Biolithica, he advises on using that diversity to find new biological tools for binding, separating and recovering metals.
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