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UK’s Discovery Park welcomes biotech firms MilaK and iLoF to its collaborative workspace, CoLab.

Discovery Park in Kent has expanded its portfolio with two new biotechnology companies: MilaK and iLoF. MilaK is a precision fermentation protein startup that develops animal-free whey protein, currently targeting the sports nutrition market. iLoF, on the other hand, is a digital health company working on personalized drug development using AI and optical technology. Both companies have moved into the park’s CoLab facility, a shared lab environment that offers access to state-of-the-art equipment and collaborative opportunities.

MilaK has received support from Innovate UK and has scaled to a seven-person team, while iLoF has raised over $10 million from investors including Microsoft Ventures. The companies were drawn to Discovery Park’s infrastructure and collaborative setup, which will enable them to accelerate their research and establish links with other life science companies. The addition of MilaK and iLoF brings the total number of tenants at the campus to over 180, covering biotechnology, pharmaceuticals, and advanced manufacturing. Discovery Park’s Head of Business Development noted that these companies represent the kind of innovative businesses that thrive in their collaborative ecosystem.

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Trends in the Precision Fermentation Market from 2025 to 2032

The Precision Fermentation Market is expected to grow from $4.73 billion in 2024 to $62.98 billion by 2032, at a CAGR of 38.21%. The market involves the use of genetically engineered microorganisms to produce specific food ingredients, proteins, or biopharmaceuticals with high accuracy and efficiency. Key players in the market include Geltor, Perfect Day, and Impossible Foods, among others. The market is driven by advancements in biotechnology and increasing demand for innovative food and pharmaceutical products.

The market is segmented by microbe, ingredient, application, and end-user. The report provides an in-depth analysis of the competitive landscape, market trends, and emerging opportunities. Regions covered include North America, South America, Europe, Asia Pacific, the Middle East, and Africa. The report also provides insights into market size, growth, and forecasts, as well as competitive benchmarking and vendor identification. DataM Intelligence, a market research and consulting firm, has published the report, which is available for purchase or subscription. The report aims to provide stakeholders with essential market data, emerging industry patterns, and strategic business intelligence.

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Day2-PRECISION FERMENTATION FOR SUSTAINABLE MANUFACTURING OF BIO-ACTIVES AND INDUSTRIAL BIOCHEMICALS



Day 2 | GIAN Course on “PRECISION FERMENTATION FOR SUSTAINABLE MANUFACTURING OF BIO-ACTIVES AND …

good morning everyone sorry for the delay so yesterday we finished our conversation on cellular Agriculture and precision fermentation right when we were discussing the topic of cellular agriculture we talked about the a cellular Productions or product Productions we also talked about the cell biomass being itself a product when we were discussing about the a cellular production I talked about transforming the host or providing the capability to the host that it can produce the product of Interest right now how do we do that how do you transform your host or provide it with the capabilities to produce the product of your interest you have to make some modifications right it’s like asking if you want to change someone’s personality you first have to understand the person itself right so keeping that in mind so this part what we just said like to change the personality of the person you need to know the person itself that’s what sets the basis of all our conversation that we are going to have today it would be more about understanding what happens or what changes we can make to the bacterias or to the host organisms specifically like yeast bacteria would be the eoli and how what are the tools that are available with us all of this that we are going to discuss fall under three different topics that what we have the synthetic biology the systems biology and then you have the enzymes and the engineering enzymes so we’ll start with synthetic biology now in my own personal Viewpoint synthetic biology actually encompasses all the concepts that we should be discussing today if you’re talking about system biology it has uh the parts of system biology in it uh if you’re talking about enzymes it is going to have the parts of enzymes in it so you might be getting a bit more of that feeling that you already are able to understand enzyme engineering or engineered enzymes in here do what the system biology exist now what you see here is the definition for uh the synthetic biology so synthetic biology is defined as the design and construction of new biological entities such as enzymes genetic circuits and cells or redesign of existing biological systems so as we started our conversation what want the equal ey to be able to produce a specific product if I know how the eoli functions what is the metabolic pathways that are followed within the eoli system I should be able to tweak the eoli or The Tweak the metabolic pathways in such a way that I can get the product of my interest do you agree to that how do we tweak it fals within synthetic biology what are the tools what are the engineering tools that actually we use will fall under this particular topic now it is different from uh the tradition of molecular and cellular biology as the focus is on the design and constructions of core components because we are only focusing on the design and construction of the core components it differs from the molecular and cellular biology so we will looking at metabolic pathways part of the enzymes we’ll also be looking at genetic circuit so whenever keep whenever I keep saying genetic circuit it’s like you have the genome you know what the genetic uh what the Gen code is and what each and every Gene is going to represent like what it will translate into so if if you know that there is a gene sequence let’s say and every section of the gene is going to translate into one specif number three or should be producing number three more than rest of the other proteins like one and two so if I can repress these sections of the gene and only allow this section to translate I would be only getting my product of Interest so there are ways to do it right how do we do it those are the tools that we going to discuss on the left hand side you’ll see the basic uh the road map that is basically used in the synthetic biology the DBL or dbtl is your design what is a b build test and learn in as an engineer when I’m talking about as an engineer engineering involves designing things right so you always design first we build it a prototype we test the Prototype we learn from the Prototype and only then we’ll go into the bigger format of it right so that’s what exactly used at a mole ular level so we have taken a macro level idea towards a molecular level idea now so the goal is to engineer cells to produce something useful and I will be showing you some of the examples we’ll be discussing a bit more in detail about those examples so for example if we have to look at the bacterial production of insulin and if we are using host you remember when we were discussing the host selection is a very important parameter when we are looking at uh production of a specific product of Interest now what was the criteria for the host selection can I repeat some of those criterias non-pathogenic should give more more quantity so you should be able to produce more of your produ H and and ease of Downstream processing or ease of extraction or ease of recovery what else understanding of different metabolism Pathways so if I had to say it in a Layman way it would be that you should be aware of the host capabilities in such a way that you can make the modifications that are required and cost effective cost Effectiveness will come into picture only then right if you’re are not aware what the host can do it it will be a very costly affair right good so I’m happy that you listen to the things that we were discussing yesterday so same thing now the same concept now let’s say if you have to produce insulin and you’re using eoli as your host what would be the very first thing that you’re going to do you’re going to design a genetic Circuit of the eoli or of the insulin production so what you have is let’s say so this is please excuse my drawing if this is your eoli this is your genetic material your DNA of the ecoli okay now there are two ways of uh producing your product of Interest now if the insulin now where do you get your insulin gene or the gene that is going to translate into insulin where will you get that insulin uh Gene of insulin from what would be the source who requires insulin humans right if somebody has diabetes insulin is basically produced to break down the sugar right so you need the insulin so you will get the genetic information from the human genome that has already been looked at right so you can take out the genetic sequence from there now you can take that genetic sequence and you can pass it on into the equoli using a a vehicle now that vehicle is called a plasmid so this is your plasmid now what is the other unique property of the plasmid so plasmid contains the sequence of Interest so that it can generate more of it right as it will replicate it will keep on generating more of that particular sequence and then eventually that sequence will translate into the protein if that protein is my uh protein of interest when the equalize growing right now what other properties now do you think every equoli that I have my plasmid into will be able to run the plasmid or the plasmid will work in that equalized system I might not be able to frame my question properly what I’m trying to say is let’s say if you have 10 equalize so you have provided the plasmas into all right now will all of them be producing insulin at the same efficiency or will they have different efficiencies like some of them might have lower efficiency some of the strings might have a higher efficiency some would be like mediocre which one will you choose and how will you choose it depends on the plasmid in what way like what is the structure of a plaset the circular I was not asking that like what is what would be the component of the plaset so you have your Jone of origin and then you have your antibiotic resistance why do you have this screening of what yes obviously so if we have antibiotic resistance then we can grow it on and we will like get the bacterias in which we have our insulin and in those which we don’t have our insulin so can plasmid also be used for selection purposes so is that a tool to add selection properties so can you repeat your question so if you have the not all bacterias would be doing that but that one would be so if I am only interested in the one which is producing my insulin to the maximum can I use this as a selection criteria for like for maximum we can’t use it like like everybody will be producing some or the other amount of the insulin for maximum property we can’t use that we cannot use that but what if like one which is not producing one which is producing we can do that we can do that right very good so for this type of selection it cannot be used but when you’re uh selecting it from the microbes that don’t have the plasmid or they’re not producing your insulin you would be able to use the plasmid as a selection criteria that that antibiotic resistance property that is provided by it now so you have your host so either you are going to add the plasmid to provide that insulin in there or you can make a cut within the genome of the bacteria or the eoli and add your Gene of interest to produce your insulin which one do you think is much more effective and easier so either I make the changes to the Genome of the equal itself or if I’m adding that external DNA strand using a plasmid in the equoli which process would be much more effective and which process would be much more easier to do using a plasma would be easy why to some extent we are sure that it will be producing the insulin now you have answered it but you have answered it in a very different way I like the answer actually it’s correct so the other thing is like when you are incorporating the specific genetic material in the eoli DNA itself there is no guarantee that it might get transcribed too it might be in a sequence that that material or the Gen but having it in the the DNA sequence itself doesn’t guarantee that so the efficiency or Effectiveness might be less but there is no way until unless you do experimentation to actually State whether it is better or not okay now so there are two ways of doing it either you add the plaset or you can add it into the DNA sequence itself so now you have the you have to build the genetic circuit and put it into the bacteria so I have built the genetic circuit like the your plasmant which is your genetic circuit and I put it inside the bacteria and then you test how much insulin is made or how much insulin is being produced and once I have optimized the one the strain that is actually able to produce most of the insulin I can take that strain and start growing them into the in the fermentor now that is exactly what this particular uh flowchart or the set of diagrams are representing so you have your human insulin Gene DNA you have your plasmid Loop of the bacterial DNA which is there in the eoli now plasmids were actually found in eoli they are separate to the the DNA of the eoli and these plasmids were the ones which were providing some unique properties to the eoli and that’s where the interest for us as scientist came into for the plasma that hey we can use these as materials to transport it can be an amazing Vector so now you have inserted your uh Gene of interest for the insulin into the plasmic Loop you pass it onto the bacteria you grow it you select it you put it into the fermentor and you start producing the insulin now that once insulin is produced or enough insulin is produced you can Harvest it and then purify and then you get your medicine your insulin okay now this is called your recombinant DNA technology technically this is your recomended DNA technology and also an important part of precision fermentation now synthetic biology actually encompasses the tools that we used to make that change of how to produce that insulin what were the tools that were used to move the or to cut the genetic sequence for the insulin from the human genome put it into the plasmid put it back into the equalized cells Let It Grow the growing part would come into the fermentation aspect but the rest of the things before we get into that is your synthetic biology but if you don’t understand the metabolic pathway or if you don’t understand the microb itself it will be very difficult to make the changes that we wanted now that part understanding the microb as a whole what happens within the microb would come under the systems biology and if instead of insulin I was let’s say developing or producing a new enzyme or I was making modification in the DNA sequence of the host to produce an enzyme of my interest with my capabilities that I like that enzyme to have that would be your enzyme engineering all three technically can be considered as one topic but there are three different tools that are used now so the approach that we use with respect to the design build and test is the designing which is your biological circuit or a system for a specific function using computational tools the build uh consists of a system by assembling editing and installing your genetic material so that’s where the plasmine comes into picture then you have your test the system functionality that once you have added whe whether you are able to produce the insulin or not that would be your test and once you have done that you put it into your firment system you can learn how the system is is performing what sort of modifications you need or what optimizations you need to produce more and more of it now this is your road map for your uh synthetic B ology now let’s look into the goal how the same thing that we had here the design the build the test and learn how we implemented for our insulin so the very first part where we are designing the insulin precursors so designed by uh designing sorry designed by finding the gene of the human insulin precursors and optimize model for the equal expression and then you move it on to build the gene sequence including the insulin precursor genes through synthesis and assembly and then you test your circuit in cells by measuring the amount of insulin that is being produced and then learn how the system works and what optimization is necessary for growing the insulin in the fermentation process your dbtl can Al is part of your Precision fermentation but before that so where we were looking at starting the culture so preparing the culture the host and then moving it on into the lab scale five lit 10 lit so you’ll have the Shaker flasks so all of these experimentations are done first in the Shaker flask to make sure that they are working then you do it into a small scale that will be 2 lit or 5 lit bioreactor and then you will do it in a pilot scale and then you’ll move it on to your commercial scale the one of the best examples that I can actually give with respect to application synthetic biology and an amazing application of synthetic biology would be the antimalarial drug artemisin now artemisin is produced in a plant atmia anua that particular species which is throughout the throughout Asia and Africa as and it is used as a tea and it press juice is used to treat malarian related symptoms like and chills it’s active ingredient is your timis which has been developed as an antimicrobial drug or sorry antimalarial drug and is used worldwide if I have to get this artimis to make my drug from the plant itself what would be the process that you will follow the process is there on the slide so you can just explain me that but what would be this the process that you’ll follow you’re going to grow the plant and extract extract it from then you have to come up with the process or extraction process Chop Chop protocol the chop it pre-re pre-at and what else so pre-treatment okay so grow Harvest post Harvest I’m not going to do Chop Chop oh okay chop chop and and then clean cleaner something uh Chop Chop can include the cleaning part also okay uh let’s say pre-treatment uh pre-treat much more important one and then you are going to do the extraction yeah it a powder form or something and once you okay why Chlor form no Powder powder form oh the powder form okay okay f extraction and then you’re going to put that into a powder form so for that you have to dry it right right and are you using a conventional oven or you’re using a freeze dryer based on the budget based on the budget okay I will Define the budget here because we are going to spend some time on this particular slide so okay so you have your budget you have your drying you have your powder form and then you do what you give the powder to the people to eat you can give for the next with the microbial we can use as the feed feed for you’re using this powder for what uh so for the next stage for the for oh that the the the thing that you’re seeing about no Tim missing comes out after extraction so this particular powder can be used as is like so that’s you have so many examples coming out from patanjali actually I gave it with respect to my work what I am doing so that’s why I give the okay now I I I realized that but I’m just so you have the chop chop you have the free that’s a very mechanical way of saying it I really like it now somebody can explain me in the bological OR biotechnological perspective what the chop chop will mean [Music] I will I’m I’m from food engineering background okay and I will try my best okay so uh for example if whatever the antimicrobial drugs uh therei sorry H antimalarial drugs there is a lethal dose to uh like a specific dosage is required to uh destroy the okay uh like get the effect so uh first of all for whatever uh drug which is available which is in the encapsulated form or compressed form that is available in the market so accordingly uh we can extract it and we can encapsulate it and the controlled delivery can be done and uh it should be stable in the pH in our good and uh it should be uh like wherever it is required so I thought like definitely it should enter into the bloodstream so definitely it should be stable until large intestine okay so it should be stable like we have to encapsulate it in that form to deliver into our drug so most of the anti microbial forms I think it’s in encapsulated form it’s available first of all pelletization after that we can encapsulate it yeah so you’re talking about Downstream once you have the powder I was asking if you there’s a way that you can explain what Chop Chop was so you had the the grow you have harvested it you cut down the tree mated it got a powder out of it of the tree itself uh and then you’re doing pre-treatment pre-treatment means reducing the moisture content okay right yeah yeah or by uh making a fine powder so that you can increase the surface area because to improve your solvent extraction efficiency you need to have a very high surface area right so you’ll do that and then you’ll do the extraction process now what would be the solvents that you use for extraction it depends upon uh even different solvent having even different polarity so this particular if it is a polar compound you’re going to use a polar solvent if it is a nonpar nonpolar you’re going to use nonpolar solvent right let’s say if it is a non-polar compound uh we will be using nonpolar like what would be the non-polar solvent that you’ll use for extraction purpose go ahead you can answer it’s okay there’s no wrong answer in this particular session so please go ahead chloroform acetone hexane okay dither or what else so almost all of these are your non-polar solvents are they good for you so they’re always going to leave a residue right when you’re doing an extraction with chloroform and acetone and xn they’re going to leave a residue on your powder after the drying Pro but when you’re looking it from the practical perspective you might not be able to go into microwave assisted extraction or ultrasonication I’m not going there that’s not the topic of our conversation I can give you a 4 hour or 10 hour lecture on that but my question here was that once you get the powder you’re basically looking at a highest Purity because you’re going to use it as a drug right so you want to get rid of any traces of any solvent that was basically used now this whole process is a very long process and the solvents that are you are going to use are also not very good for your health and you will need a very costly Downstream processing methodology that will get rid of the traces of these organic solvents and you’ll get your product of best quality or the highest quality do you agree with that right so practically it’s possible but I will not like it or I will not like to use it for uh let’s say mass production whatever like to have in that case is to identify which part of the plant xenome is responsible to produce this arine and then I can use that put it into a genetically modified eoli or a yeast or a fungi grow it produce it on a larger scale right that would be the interest and that is exactly what people did because malaria is a major major issue in Africa it’s also a major issue in India and at one point of time there were very limited availability of drugs and there were the drugs that were available were very costly so synthetic biology actually provided the possibility to develop Tim at a very cost effective way or in a very cost effective way and it made its availability across the globe and now that is also used as a very first uh first line of defense so we are using this as the first treatment that you give to make sure that uh the person is cured of malaria so one of that example now would be that the production of amorph hadine which is your precursor and its conversion to di Hydro artisic acid which is again the precursor for arine so emorine is being produced in the yeast now yeast as a source because before this they did in eoli when they did that in the eoli the overall yield was less they made changes they looked into other host they found yeast they modification to the yeast they got much better yield so that’s how the host selection will also change because you sometimes it’s not that you can decide on the day one itself that you know what this is the best host that I can use for my genetic material to grow you might have to do some trials onto it so you’ll do with the Eola you’ll see whether you able to improve the overall functionality and product uh production of your product of interest if it doesn’t work then you try if you have understood the metabolic pathways in the East and if you can make modification into the yeast you will start growing into that because the fermentation process will change what sort of fermentation system do you think you will need for the yeast because in the later courses or the later lectures that we have tomorrow and day after we are going to talk about batch reactors we going to talk about the FED batch reactors aren’t we so we’re going to talk about these type of reactors and how to design these type of reactors I’m not saying physically but mathematically so what sort of bi reactor you’re going to use for which type of host matters the most so when we are going to use yeast and for that you only need the input so that you can produce your product I can use a Fed batch where I can only give the input there is no output in a bat reactor there’s no input there’s no output once you put everything in you close and that’s it it’s like uh when you cook rice in a pressure cooker you put the rice you put the water close it on the stove done and then you wait it to whistle that’s your batch reactor good example now same rice you added less water initially but it’s in a it’s an open pan you’ll add more water as the as it is boiling right so technically that becomes a Fed batch so you’ll add the nutrients for the cells to grow so for the yeast we generally use fed batch so this one was done on a Fed batch reactor and what you will see here this particular diagram here and I really in if you can read this particular paper it’s really interesting paper uh they did a genetic modification into the into the genome of the yeast and they compared to their previous uh cultures or which were used earlier the amount of emine that was being produced was pretty high the amorin and also you can look the arisc acid is pretty high so your y151 is your Generation 1 this is your generation 2 so there were two different generations of the the microb and the plasmids that were being used or the processes that were being used within those micros to grow and to produce these precursors so in the generation two you get a much better yield so that’s how we keep on improving our productivity we have to continue so we can start with the eoli we might get to a certain level we’ll then change it we’ll try to another host we might be able to get something else as part of of your uh Gan series you’re going to do two case studies one is based on a plant protein we are going to have some form of discussion today in groups what source will you choose like what host should be there and what will the process and where will you get your sequence from how will you get that sequence from all of that will be discussed in this class today so in the synthetic biology uh the systems biology and the enzyme engineering so we I will give you the background for it to build on your case study so well it’s a good example right so like the producing the malarial parasite sorry not malal parasite malarial drug please excuse me on that you’re not producing the malal parasite but do you know how the malaria parasite actually works you have heard people get malaria but do you know why do get why do they get malaria or how the how does that plasmodium falum which is the parasite impacts so when it comes inside what does it do where does it grow I’m not able to hear you so I’m so sorry RVC in your red blood cells have you heard uh sickle cell anemia what is Cle cell anemia your your red blood cells are in a CLE cell shap right and that is caused because of a genetic mutation people having CLE cell anemia cannot contract malaria so genetic modification can be good for you it’ll kill you anyway but not with malaria at least right but the point is these genetic modifications are very very important they’re very natural so microbes go through genetic modification in a very natural way so let’s say if you want to produce a specific genetic product or like like a protein but you want to make sure that it is is done in a very evolutionary way so you’ll make a small modification to the DNA sequence you will let that mutate from one generation to the second generation to the third generation and you’ll keep on checking if your protein of interest is being produced and in what quantity and the moment you reach the strain that is actually producing the protein of interest in the highest quantity possible you choose that but that has been a very evolutionary way of making that modification it’s a very tiring process it’s a long process but it’s a good process okay which I’m going to Showcase right now so like this do you have this any anyone has that or have you ever seen any marking at the bottom you’ll always see a marking like this on a plastic bottle right now now talic acid is the precursor which is basically used to make p so talic acid is a precursor which is basically used to make your p and this p is mostly used for your making the bottles and the Plastics right now if you’re looking at the conventional process you’re going to see that it is using Cobalt it is using manganese those are heavy metals and uh you would have heard about heavy metal pollution right in the soil in the water so if you’re looking at a process chemical process that are using these Metals you don’t want to use them because you you would like you prefer to change it it’s not environmentally sustainable process so we have to come up with something else but if there is a way for us to produce this PTA within a microbe I would love to do that because I can produce as much as I want or even more but what you have like in a conventional process in the normal regular Pro processing you’re producing in bulk and that’s the reason why it is only costing you very less it’s only a dollar a kg so the cost of that is pretty less because you’re producing in bulk using chemicals now the same thing was done using microbes and the efficiency that they got was approximately 6 G per liter which was equivalent to be honest it’s very equivalent or similar to what you would have got in a conventional process but when you see the diagram on the left it looks very very complex but if you have taken a course in Biochemistry you would be able to identify some of the components within that right can you identify those for me you have it is actually saying you have your glycolysis cycle you have your TCA cycle that’s your biochemistry 101 that’s the very first thing that you study in Biochemistry right now why do we need to have a gly colis cycle in the TC cycle who has this cycle here in this particular situation who has this cycle where is this cycle present right now within the within the micro within the host and the and the host is is there in the title right so your eoli is basically the host and the glycosis cycle the TCS Cycles are present within that now there would be a specific Gene sequence in the eolive that would lead to the glycolysis cycle that will lead to the TCA cycle that will lead to the other biochemical Pathways right once you have identified what each each and every genetic material each and every genetic sequence in a in a in a genome does so you can map the whole body but they all are interacting with each other it might so happen that once the gene 3 is activated that’s when only Gene six will get activated because it develops a precursor to uh to activate the Cycles or metabolic pathway for the gene six or Gene 7 right so those type of understanding understanding the relationship between the genetic um tools where you’re adding these plasmids these are the two plasmids here at the bottom so you have the origin and then you’re producing your product you’re initiating the production of your product so this is carrying your Gene of interest and then it is going to produce your product and that particular product the TPA is going to get released extracellularly and then you can remove or recover it so now we have moved from a chemical synthesis process into a biological synthesis process now Effectiveness might be comparable Effectiveness might also be less sometimes but even if it is less you keep on doing the permutation combination you keep on running it you can keep on changing the host you keep on playing with the feed stocks you would be able to improve the overall production efficiency of your product at the very end and this is where I actually I wanted to discuss what the plasmid looks like but we all were able to answer the questions beforehand so I’m not going to discuss what the plasmid is but it also utilizes the same design build test and learn process okay now what are the tools that on the right side you will see in the green so you have your engineering DNA the mo biomolecular engineering the host engineering and your data Sciences these are the tools that we basically use as part of the synthetic biology now for the engineering DNA you are looking at the synthesis now whatever we have discussed till now even since yesterday we have been always discussing about making modification to the host DNA correct cor now what if if I tell you let’s make our own DNA can we do that what is the DNA made of nucleic acids nitrogen is bases phosphate group and what would be those nucleic acids nucleic acids will be that um just give me the alphabet cyto 80 0gc so DNA is made of a t n g and C right so it’s just a sequencing right of a t g c t g a c and you can keep on changing it you keep on getting your double standard DNA or single standard DNA now that’s the idea so can I make it if I know if I have let’s say all my precursors as a building block right if I have my a if I have my T if I have my G if I have my C I can make my own DNA sequence so rather than making waiting for the host DNA sequence I can actually make my own DNA sequences so that synthesis will require some engineering tools that can be used to do that other would be the genome that is present in a host or in the micro or in the e if I have to sequence it to actually understand what is their atgc sequences if I can identify the tools that can be used to identify that sorry if I can develop the tools that can be used to identify that would come under the sequencing you have heard about the Human Genome Project right that’s where we were uh sequencing the whole Human Genome and in all mystery movies detective series specifically I still remember the one which I used to watch here see ID I hope you are aware of that one I love that one okay da that one yes okay so in that if you had to do the DNA sequence they we do talk about that later in their uh some of the serieses right so they’re doing the um they get the hair sample or the blood samples and they’re matching the DNA right how know how to sequence it you print and then you are able to match it at one point of time in history that was completely unimaginable you couldn’t even imagine that this thing is possible now it is possible earlier the same finger the DNA fingerprinting used to take weeks or months nowadays it takes hours because of the engineering advances that have taken place and those advances that I’m talking about are part of your synthetic biological tools that have been developed over the years the computational tools the mathematical tools the engineering tools all of this combined have given us the efficiency that we can actually sequence the DNS sorry sequence The genome and get and study the metabolic pathways understand how each and every uh genetic uh code is related to each other and what inter relation do actually they have with their phenotype typic pathway that understanding that relationship understanding is very very important when you’re working with synthetic biology then comes the standardization the assembly we can assemble all of these and even if you want to do the editing like the way we did in the plasmid so all of that comes under the tools of engineering DNA then some of the examples would be for the synthesis and sequencing uh at one point of time the cost that was involved in terms terms of looking at in late 1990s if you were doing the DNA sequences per bases the price per base what would be the base how many bases are there like how many okay what is the base is a a base what is a base pair a a a is a base pair and GC is a base pair so is a a base yes so identification of just a just T just G just C so the cost per base not base pair per base that is what I was talking about at one point of time it’s like $100 now is in like in sense we can do that so it’s pretty low right with the Advent of engineering with more and more advancement that we have had this whole thing has reduced now we are capable of doing DNA sequencing and the synthesis uh at a very low cost now you have the the single standard DNA if you want to synthesize those uh you use a solid phase chemistry uh which actually includes uh control po glass beads and then you are able to put that and then you can get your sequences done people like me uh when we do research and if we do need to have a sequencing done or let’s say synthesis done for a DNA uh I’ll say the one we used to have you heard about this term apar have you heard this ter what exactly is it single A single standard standard of DNA which might be specific to something specific right like we used to develop this after for microt toxins if I have to identify a microt toxin if I want to develop uh a sensing a biosensing uh technique I would be using this aper because they would be very very effective and my sensing capabilities would be the best in that aspect so to develop these short standand dnas rather than meet you use a process called a selects okay now that was completely unimaginable at one point of time so now it is very very easy I used to pay around $40 to get one aper done so the only thing that I had to tell them is that this is the base sequence that I need or this is the sequence that I need of my atgcs can you give me and I need a thle group in the front I need this in the back and they will make it the company will make it and then send it to uh they will ship it to us and then we will use it it’s as simple as that now companies like twist agilant they use uh silicon chip Technologies to make this single standard DNS so there are different techniques different different processes that are available for you to develop these sequences now other would be uh production of the double double standard DNS uh where you use the polymer chain assembly for shorter synthetic uh fragments and for the double standard genes are produced from stitching together those short single standard oligo using DNA polymer and PCR so PCR everybody’s aware of it you should have had demonstration I still remember when I was watching C at one point of time um they were talking about a PCR machine and that they showed the PCR machine but it was a microwave and he said like no this is a PCR it does this and I was so excited that this is how the PCR should look when I went for my undergrad it was a very different machine but it it’s fun like you get to know a lot of these things from your day-to-day life right so PCR can be used to make your double standard DNS and it’s a very common technique once it came into the market it has made life much more easier for uh molecular biologists then comes the genetic circuits now genetic circuits is an interesting part I’m not sure but have you seen some things like these when you’re reading some of these molecular biologies or uh genetic papers these diagrams I’m not I’m not saying anything else but just these diagrams now these diagrams are nothing this is on the right hand side you have your code or the language it’s like your a b c d e f so those are your alphabets and when you arrange your alphabets you get your words right similarly these symbols are used to design your circuit the idea was that it will resemble an electrical circuit so when you have venic acid and the symbol that is being used is to repress so the valonic acid is present this genetic sequence is repressed okay so if valentic acid is present only RFP is expressed the rest is repressed so the promoter is the start right so then the promoter this whole sequence will get expressed so only RFP will get expressed if the valenc acid is present so because it is repressing the rest of the process the vanr will not get expressed because you have the promoter here too but just because of the presence of the vanic acid it won’t work in this particular case in the second example you can see where you have the light source if the blue light is present what will happen look at the code on the right hand side look at the diagram on the on the left hand side your circuit look at the code and see what is happening if the blue light is present which one will get inhibited you have the promoter at the very beginning on the left hand side what is the first thing yf1 right followed by fixj fxj I’m so sorry if it is not clear is it not clear enough no the diagram is it not clear like are you are those alphabets legible no right I’m so sorry so the very first one is yf1 on the left hand side followed by fixed J then I think it is cdrb CDR a and CF okay so if the blue light is on there is repression repressor sign which one will get repressed yf1 and so your yf1 will get repressed even the fixed CH will get repressed with the innovation of the yf1 the fixed J will get activated okay Express the CD CDR a yes and if the fixed J is active you express the CL at the Varan that’s not CF that’s a very CL and if no CL Express CD R A so these are the that’s the language that you’re using so you’re using the symbols on the right hand side to write your electrical circuit so this is the very uh core of synthetic biology or when you’re doing computational synthetic biology they actually show you these things and this is something that they will Design the genetic circuitry and you would see a very the similar example here on the plasms you see the promote on the left hand side of the very bottom you should see there so you have the promoter and that promoter is going to use uh and switch on the X yl MSC and that will lead to the TSA mbcd and it will keep on going right now another aspect of synthetic biology is B biomolecular biomolecular Engineering in the biomolecular engineering what we are doing is uh the natural Macro Molecule such as the proteins they can be engineered to have new functionalities similarly where we were talking about the engineering enzymes so enzymes are proteins they are basically used for catalysis correct now if you want your enzymes to be capable of of for directed Evolution so you make one mutation you let it continue from one generation to the second generation to the third generation and then you are able to identify which generation actually has it now mutations question for you uh let’s say if somebody has CLE cell anemia one of the parents have CLE cell anemia will the progenies will also get the CLE cell anemia so if a parent has that will the kids also have it no every progeny will it get transferred every generation it might not get transferred every generation but mutation which is intent will get transferred every generation so if you want to kill the mosquitoes make a mutation the progenies will not and that is actually a research going on where they’re actually working on Chang the DNA sequence in such a way they have put up a mutation and that mutation once it get transferred it will be transferred from one generation or the second generation to the third generation but I don’t want that mutation I want it to evolve I want it to mutate by itself right so that would be that would be the directed Evolution I’m directing it so indirect evolution is like you just did and wait something might happen somewhere a direct Evolution where you’re directing the evolution to go in a specific order got the idea this directed Evolution please remember this term directed Evolution you might want to use it when we go into the case study too just a hint now directed mutation is basically used to make modifications to enzymes specifically so if you’re making changes to the proteins to the enzymes or you’re trying to develop new types of proteins new types of enzymes with different functionalities you generally utilize the directed Evolution process so directed evolution is used through rounds of sequence diversification selections for functions and amplifications now entirely new protein sequences not seen in future can be generated uh by through the denovo protein design so I can actually make my own protein even that is a possibility these days so that would be your denovo protein design so something that is not natural I can make it any questions tell now another aspect of biomolecular engineering would come with respect to novel metabolic pathways that can be constructed using retrosynthetic retro sorry retro retrosynthesis approach sorry for the slip of the tongue now retrosynthesis approaches anyone is aware of what exactly it is it’s a very interesting thing but uh it’s widely used in chemistry I might be totally wrong I see I’m I’m not I will never consider myself to an expert in system biology I’m an engineer but this is a topic that you need to have some background in so that you can understand the rest of the things that we are going to discuss in this particular course that’s the reason why I’m giving you this information but retrosynthesis approaches in my ideas let’s say if I ask you to make a specific food product you will ask me what would be the raw material let’s say right so if you have to bake a cookie you’ll take the flour you’ll take the chocolate chip you’ll take the egg and you take all the utensils that are required and then you can make or bake a cookie what if you follow the you go backward now you you know a product so let’s say I want to have a product a I know that a can be made from B and C C is commercially available but B is not commercially available so that means you can buy c as a raw material but B is not commercially available but you know that b can be uh produced from D but D is also not commercially available but D can be produced from e and f f is commercially available e is not okay but you know that e can be produced from G which is your commercially available now what are your raw materials to make a g g f and c rest all are not so we don’t show them as chemical reactions arrows we always show them as double arrows because that might be the the will give me D now this is proper chemical reaction now this D with some chemical transformation will give me B with a addition of C will give me a which is my final product now this is called retrosynthesis approach use that now with your metabolic pathways so you know let’s say that atile Co a have you heard about this term atile Co a you would have seen it in one of the now atile Co a is also a precursor for many many other uh products right so you know that Estel Co a is one of the process which is like one of the uh precursors for my particular product but that’s the final product but you need the cycle for the before you reach that IAL COA so you will go backward you start developing that cycle and you will somehow put it with your metabolic pathway your glycosis cycle that all this atile COA will start getting into that pathway the one of your interest or the one which you have engineered so that would be the biomolecular engineering aspect of it I am not asking you to be a champion in this I’m just trying to give you a basic idea that this is one way that we can do things is it clear to you so if you want to introduce a new metabolic pathways you need to know what like at least one of the components of your metabolic pathway should be present within the one of the metabolic pathways within the cell and then you can use that as a precursor to develop your own and then you can use repressors to suppress the rest of the cycle and all the atile COA that is being produced will get moved towards your Pathways and your product will only will be produced that is also possible that is your engineering here okay I’ll find few examples and bring it tomorrow on this now host engineering uh we have been discussing this as part of our Precision formation also so what are the different types of host that that there are and what changes do we do so either we can use a cell-free systems a single cell or multicellular organisms or even the biomass or the consor so the changes that we can make so what are the different types of host that we can use so what are the different systems so one would be the cell-free system where you are actually doing it in the lab in the in the chemicals itself so it can be used as a quick test for gene expression you grow your compounds to taxing for the cells and it needs to be extracted and purified for bacteria that’s where we get into the the fermentation side so you can grow well in bulk model for many many diseases we have used bacterias to look out how specific diseases are uh how specific diseases can be fixed that we can identify the proteins that are uh eliciting a specific response by your immune system by modif the host uh which is specifically the bacteria here it’s a procaryotic can’t fold many human proteins so if you’re trying to work with your human proteins in a bacterial cell it’s not possible because it is not capable of folding them uh human proteins are pretty huge too that is also one of the reasoning yeast on the other hand is pretty good in that so if you’re going for the proteins and enzymes yeast is a very good source or sorry very good host so it grows well in but milk can produce variety of proteins and often used for food and bread so in the yeast the best best example for the yeast would be the cchomes the other host that you can choose are your mammals uh so you have your human protein folding capabilities that are present because it’s us it’s our cells that we are using you can you use that for to test the drug therapies let me ask you a question uh the cell lines that we use the cancer cell lines what type of host are they will they fall within the mammal the cancer cell Lin depends helles and the Chell lines they are the Maman cell lines actually yes so I’m just asking so cancer cell lines will that fall with the Maman cell lines yes sir so cancer cell lines mostly when we are looking at for disease uh identification of drugs that might act against a specific disease within the humans we basically use the human cell lines right so those mamalian cell lines are basically used you will appreciate this fact the majority of the drugs that are developed are proteins and when when you’re working with proteins you always want to see how they will interact meleon cells are best to work with that because those proteins are mostly human proteins so testing uh drug therapies and they they very difficult to grow in bulk uh I have my own personal experience during my masters where when I was working on the cancer cell lines they will die multiple times I have to repeat that same experimentation like six or seven times to be able to do it a small modification like even like like if I’m moving it from one location to another location I basically just added a bit more of force I’m done restart the whole thing it used to be fun but not interesting that’s why I moved back into engineering but anyways uh plant cell lines uh they’re good for the photosynthetic Pathways and if you’re looking at varieties of compounds if you’re looking at generation of phyto compounds then plant cell line or sorry plant cells are very good hosts uh very few tools are available to work with them the way we have it for the mammals for the equaly and the yeast there are so many genetic engineering tools that we can use for the plants we don’t have that many it’s not a very well studied area uh it’s also very difficult because of the presence of the cell wall it creates another hindrance uh whole organisms that’s when we go for the mouse model and I’m going to now question your ethical aspect here how many of you have actually worked with mouse models if I may ask have you ever seen a mouse model like white mouses the ones which are used you know how we have to extract our things out of them right what do we do sir dissecting like extracted the pbcs peripheral blood cells out of it nonhuman way I remember when I was doing my masters at Mill uh one faculty in molecular biology and microbiology he taught me how to do it uh I was a TA for a course in microbiology and we had to demonstrate to the undergraduate students how to do that and oh my God like students will cry when we are doing that even we used to cry so that’s one for me personally it’s an amazing thing to work with them but that’s ethical aspect comes into picture so that’s why you will see majority of researchers are trying to identify host or identify processes in which they don’t have to go into this but sometimes it is necessary because when you want to see the phenotypic differences right that’s the only way you can see it you cannot see the phenotypic differences in the micro but you can only observe that in a living organism and that would be your mouth and it’s most difficult to engineer at the cell level now comes the end of your synthetic biology part now we have been discussing about the the cells we have talked about the DNA sequences the genetics you can the proteins uh directed evolution of the proteins now the question for you would be what sort of information do I get from synthetic biology like what are the techniques that we are using everything that we talked about they can be termed under uh an umbrella of something called as omix right proteomics genomics metabolomics transcriptomics and please go ahead majority are these so they will fall under the omix that develops the data that you get now from the proteomics you can get the information about the protein so if let’s say if I ask you to give me the structure of the protein I give you the protein name if you have to identify the structure of the protein where do you go pdb the protein database bank right so that would be the very first place I will look for a protein sequence right if I want the sequence and then the 3D structure or the 2D structure I will be or the primary structure of the protein if it has been crystallized and uploaded not all proteins we have not been successful in uh crystallizing all proteins yet but that’s an ongoing process as people are doing that they keep on uploading on the pdb so you’ll be that will be your very first source of information what if you want to study how the evolutionary trend of genetic sequence or the mutation took place what will you use or what do you want yes all the bioinformatics tools that you can use right application of that also falls under synthetic biology and you have to excuse me on that because I am not an expert in bioinformatics so I cannot teach you blast faster I would have done that as part of my undergrad but not when I’m doing my research I’m not working on these areas but these are the tools that are available now these will provide you the data that you can basically analyze later on to understand the metabolic pathways if you get all the omic data you can understand the metabolic pathway you can study each and every sequence of the genome and understand in uh the relationship the interaction between the different sequences one metabolic pathways and other metabolic pathways because sometimes the product of one metabolic pathway is the precursor for the other metabolic pathway so understanding that relationship having that as a map will help understanding and developing new strains developing new methodologies to develop or to produce your product of Interest using Precision ferment welcome back do you have any questions with respect to the previous part of the session that we had on synthetic biology if not we will get into the enzymes and and the engineering enzymes and we’ll also discuss about systems biology the thing would be that the the some of the concepts we have already discussed while we were having the conversation about synthetic biology so it might seem like a repetition and we are also going to uh go through some of the details about enzymes that you might be aware of if in case there is something that you would like to add please let me know we can add to to our conversation and if there is something that I am able to add to you that would be perfect okay to start with enzymes now what are enzymes and what is a catalyst Catalyst if I remember correctly from my chemistry is anything that basically moves the chemical reaction forward in a specific Direction so if you’re moving from A to B you use a catalyst it will make it faster but Catalyst are always materials that will provide their surface for the reaction is this statement true majority of times Catalyst are the ones that are providing the surface for the reaction to take place they’re also ones which impact the the uh the let’s say the activation energy that is involved in the reaction process process now proteins sorry all enzymes are proteins but not all proteins are enzymes that’s if I remember correctly that was there in the biochemistry textbook now proteins that speed up reactions in living cells to perform various functions like digestions muscles building and many more are one of the few of the functions of the enzymes that we are going to work with the one which you see on the right hand side is a lysozyme uh you you should have heard about egg white lysozyme protein so the egg white albumine or the egg white of the uh yeah sorry the egg white contains lysozyme as one of the proteins where else can you find lysozyme yes in your saliva right so lysozyme is a very important enzyme and it’s a very common enzyme now most of them are threedimensional globular uh proteins that means the tertiary and quary so when we were discussing about the the structure of the DNA we talked about the atgc but we we didn’t talk about the structure of the protein right now proteins are made up of amino acids so if you have amino acid a let’s say I’m just going to use a bcde for that so you have amino acid 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 uh so 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 now 16 Amino aets if they are arranged in a sequence this becomes your primary structure right once they start folding they will give you the the secondary structures what are the different secondary structures that you’ll have Alpha heles Beta sheets parallel and anti-parallel you will also have coils turns what else are there these are the major secondary structures that you will have right so all of these secondary structures so what defines a specific secondary structure that this particular protein sequence is going to give you uh secondary structure let’s say alpha helicis or a beta sheet what defines that what defines a specific protein would be produced in a DNA the sequence of the DNA right the sequence of your amino acid is what defines what sort of secondary structure you will have in a protein now when you take all of these secondary structures and then these secondary structures fold further they give you tertiary structure and when multiple tertiary structures combine together that gives you a quary structure right now all these structures of the proteins when you look at from uh from the very first slide if you say if you look at from the surface uh Dimensions so if you add surface to that protein you’ll see that there are groups these groups are mostly the locations where they are able to go for the lock and key mechanism so these are called your active sites might that might not be the active site in this particular isoy protein it might be here but I’m just saying the structure of the protein will Define where exactly your active site will will lie and what the structure of your AC side will look like now most of sorry can be obtained from Plants enzymes can be obtained from plants from animals and microorganisms through relatively simpler extraction processes it has been used for centuries in the food production process for cheese making beer making or sorry beer brewing and do leavening uh what other applications of enzymes do you see in the food sector clarification [Music] okay bitterness reduction so you’re talking about the sensory yeah it’s just adding the sensory value to it right can protein add texture meat tenderization what else is there the gluten protein that you find in the bread what does it provide blood uh like cross linking softening of the blood it provides that Clos linking and the network in which your starch is available right so that also adds to the texture of the bread so proteins are capable of providing you the textures they’re also not only capable of uh catalyzing experimentation sorry uh reactions but they are also capable of adding texture the sensory values to the food products and that’s why we are using them like a lot in the food industry from the pharmaceutical aspect enzymes are capable of working as a drug there is a medicine which you should be aware of unigy if you have an upset stomach that’s when they are given that unigy so it it helps you to make your digestion go well right so there are different types of applications of the enzymes because enzymes are the ones which are going to cleave the proteins into smaller bits and so that your body can absorb the amino acids any idea why we get allergies to protein then if we already have the enzymes and if they’re able to go and cut the specific protein into smaller bits why do we get allergies use the mic to answer the question autoimmunity like so you’re saying that when we D when we ingest the protein our autoimmune or our immunity sorry our immunological response against it leads to Allergy that that I’m aware of but yes sir like even certain protein even our body is consider as anti body so sorry antigen so for example egg allergy certain people egg allergies or for example in case of uh gluten intolerance like disease are there so it’s like immun like uh that that may create certain problem to those people like swelling swelling I know so that would be eological response to the presence of the protein my question I might not be very clear in that so my question is what part of the protein initiates that immune response is it a specific amino acid that initiat immune response receptors like proteins have receptors the body has receptors but my question is what part of the protein Elites an immune response you’re the biotechnology you should have a course in Immunology right I had that was a long time back try try see there is no right answer for most of the things just try your best and let’s say okay so PE you are aware of nut allergy many people do have nut allergies in one of the research that my graduate student did we figured out that I I sorry not my Gad actually a colleague of mine did we figured out that if you boil Peanut the allergenicity of that protein is less so the immune response that might happen is less as compared to if you are roasting that peanut so roasted peanuts will elicit a heavier immune response as compared to the boiled peanuts why proteins do get denatured at High temp roasting is at a way higher temperature because oil is at a very high temperature as compared to water CH there is a change in the structure right so similarly you can actually engineer your enzymes by because all proteins are not enzymes but all enzymes are proteins so because they are proteins I can change the structure of my enzymes by modifying the structure of my enzymes I can change their capabilities I can change the way they will behave in a specific chemical reaction okay that is what I wanted to bring our discussion back to but it is important for you to understand the structure of the protein to understand how the functionality of the protein is dependent on its structure if you change the structure let’s say if you change the sequence of the amino acid you will change its functionality but let’s say if you’re not able to change the sequence even if you modify the secondary structures you will modify the functionality of the protein okay so if I take a protein and let’s say I put it inside a microwave and I switch on the microwave for a minute because of the electric my Electro oxala microwave right oxala electric field my protein will go through push and pull because your Alpha helic structures are like a dipole so they have a positive and a negative so they will start rotating in the direction of the electric field and that leads to the turns and the twist turns and the twist so if you have like it’s like a wire so you keep on turning twisting it turning twisting you’ll break it if you use enough power you might be able to denature the whole protein so that what happens when you are working with the proteins with the temperature perspective so we do want sometimes for our enzymes to have the capability that they are not impacted by the temperature they should not be impacted by the pH because all these environmental factors if they are impacting our enzymes functionality we would like them to be safer we would like to make sure that we engineer them in such a way that they’re not impacted by these environmental factors at all that comes under the engineering enzymes now the structure of the enzymes is a global structure with a pocket which is called as an active site we already discussed that now active site is where The Binding of actives so with the residue takes place and which holds which help to hold to the substrate now acis site is generally or is generally less than 5% of total surface area so the design or the structure of the Lan that we saw even just one single group might be the active side rest all is not involved it’s only one section of the protein which is just maybe the 5 to 6% of it of the surface area which should be involved in the activ actively involved in the reaction process so change in the shape of the protein affects the shape of the active site and the enzyme function so if you take your enzyme put it inside a micro take your enzyme put it in the boiling water take your enzyme put it in an oven the moment you will add heat the protein structure will change the active side structure will change if you change the active side structure it might not be able to bind so those are the things that happen if you if there’s a mutation that takes place and your enzymes are not capable of binding to a specific substrate anymore then that particular mutation is working against you if you come up with a mutation that is going to give you an enzyme with an active site structure that will actually work in your favor is where I’m I’m going with the directed Evolution so if you want to change we would like to have those type of changes to to change the structure of the enzyme itself and you can only change the structure of the enzyme by changing the sequence or subjecting it to external stress like heat pressure or even Shear mechanical Shear that might help change the structure but those things are outside the scope of our conversation we would only like to work towards the changing the primary sequence that primary sequence change will give us a different change in the structure of the enzyme now these are some of the classes of enzymes you have oxidoreductase transferases hydrolysis liases isomerases Li gazes so they all have different uh functionality so oxid will go for the Redux reactions transfer ises for transer exchange of certain chemical groups lies would be on non-hydrolytic Bond cleavage isomerism would be conversion of isomers from Cy to trans or trans to Cy if I remember my chemistry correctly uh liases or synthesis would be synthesis of two molecular substrates into one molecular compound using ATP hydrolysis some of the properties of enzymes which are of importance for us would be their absolute specificity some enzymes if they have a specificity to specific spefic substrate we would like to maintain that or we would like to develop that type of specificity in our engineered enzyme for that specific subset so that we can get the product that we want at the very end the group specificity would be if there are structurally related groups it can act on both the structures uh Optical specificity would be to work on the optical isomers and the geometrical specific specificity would be uh specificity towards CIS or trans forms like fases or interconversion of fumic and malic acids the other properties of the enzymes would be the collidal nature of the enzymes the catalytic nature we have already discussed that it can be affected by the temperature and pH now these are the most important parameters that we are going to work with now when we were discussing about Precision fermentation when we were discussing About Cellular agriculture or whenever we had the conversation about the fermentation as part of cellular agriculture or Precision fermentation we didn’t talk in detail about the process optimization we did discuss that the process optimization is required but what are the process parameters in the fermentation that are involved so you have a fermentor let’s say we are just going to draw a single uh a simpler fermentation system so you have your impellers you have your Sparger so which is your O2 what are the process parameters here the speed and rotation of the impeller would be there one process parameter O2 concentration let’s say would be another one the temperature can be another one I have a temperature Pro I have a pH probe right so I can change the pH I can change the temperature now will the enzymes get impacted by the impeller speed just guess will enzymes to get impacted by impeller speed maybe but it’s highly unlikely but maybe because impellers are not moving like regular fans the ones which are running around here but they are just pretty slow it’s mostly to maintain the homogeneous mixture of the medium right or to make sure that oxygen is diffusing throughout the medium so when we come into the design of the reactor you will see when we talking about a mass transfer how we want the oxygen to be diffused throughout the reactor and that’s where the impeller speed the design of the impeller comes into picture the other aspect the ones which we can control and one which we which changes as the product is formed or the substrate is consumed is your temperature and pH so the temperature and pH can impact whether your reactions are going forward or it is stopping completely or it’s going backwards right so enzymes being impacted by temperature and pH is not something new for the fermentation process if the enzymes are involved there so it is a very important process parameter so these two are very important process parameters and we always like to see if the enzymes or the proteins that are involved in the fermentation process are actually capable of running at the process parameters that we have chosen so if I choose let’s say a temperature range or of 50 to 80° C my enzymes and the proteins that I’m working with or even my product should be stable at this particular temperature my draw metal should be stable my product should be stable and the whole process the chemical reaction that is taking place should be stable at this temperature range pH mostly would be in a fermentation process what is the general pH is acidic alkaline or neutral acidic so you’re going less than seven how much less than seven do you think you go like 3 4 it’s go 6.5 6.6 that’s still neutral so you maintain somewhere near the neutrality so you want to maintain that so some of the products that are formed will add like if ethanol is a product that is formed it is going to increase your acidity of pH or decrease it it will increase the acidity right so that means it will lower the ph and when it lowers the pH what happens to the microbes they die right so that’s why your substrate now had is acting as a inhibitor see you all are aware of the design of reactors I don’t need to teach that now so that is exactly what happens when you’re looking at the substrate being a product being produced and sometimes the product will act as an inhibitor for the growth of the organism now that’s where the enzymes also come into picture if I’m able to maintain the pH by producing other products to balance counterbalance it so there are things that can be done now it also speeds up the reaction by loading the activation energy and it should not impact your end product the one which you’re working with now the synthesis of enzymes as we were discussing in synthetic biology you have your DNA so DNA gives you RNA or mRNA and this mRNA gives you proteins right I if I remember correctly it used to be like one sequence is red then another there’s a gap and then another sequence that is red and then that gives you the MRNA am I correct it has been a long time that I have refreshed my molecular biology but anyway so you have your DNA sequence you get your mRNA from the MRN you are getting your proteins right now this is where your ribosomes come into picture right now the information is carried by the DNA which is clear and the amino acid forms to make the specific enzyme so the sequence of the amino acids that we are going to work with Will Define the type of enzyme that we are going to have now there are intracellular enzymes and extracellular enzymes so intracellular enzymes are synthesize and retain within the cell the example of those would be the reduction reaction in mitochondria so some of the dedu that are generated there extracellular enzymes are synthesized in the cell but secreted to work outside now when they are working outside outside the cell or outside in the cytoplasm where so when we say extracellular is it outside the cell always intracellular can be in the cytoplasm but it’s still within the cell okay so examples would be the digestive enzy enzymes by pancreas to work in dudum now many of these extracellular enzymes are also used to digest uh some of the food molecules that can be used by the cells for the growing for the growth for their food and uh you would be amazed to know that these the capability of cells to produce enzymes extracellular enzymes is what uh make them very very interesting like specifically microbial uh some of some of the microbes they can grow on plastic they can actually eat plastic there are fungi that can eat plastic how are they able to digest plastic it’s not like they’re eating like the way we eat what are they doing so they are producing enzymes that are basically breaking down the plastic into smaller units that can be absorbed and used as a source for the growth of the fungi or the bacteria so that’s why enzymes play a very important role if you’re looking at from the environmental application also not just from the food application but from the environmental application these enzymes play a very vital role so any like currently there is a huge amount of research that is going on in this direction where they’re looking at identifying enzymes that are produced by different novel bacterias that can actually eat plastic in my own research group we are working on microplastics so we are trying to identify microbes or we are trying to identify processes in which we can actually remove these microplastics from the environment or from the acous environment so enzyme understanding how enzymes can work or how we can engineer these enzymes might help us in future in developing products let’s say we would be able to develop a product through fermentation just like a like a dried enzyme powder and you see that there is a water body you know that is contaminated with uh microplastics you just spread that powder on that water body and you that particular microplastic would be degraded over a period of time uh you should um do you have pets at home if I may ask so people do have pets like specifically I have two cats at home and pets sometimes due to their behavioral issue they will pee outside on your rug or on the floor and that smell which is there to get rid of that smell there are products that have been developed n Naturally by using enzymes that will break down that urine and the odor completely so that’s a biological way of getting rid of the odor that’s the biological way of uh developing a cleaning agent you would have heard about these uh enzyme based detergents oxie which is used aial it has so they also have these enzymes that actually work with the fiber to get rid of the Dust where are those enzymes coming from where are those enzymes produced in bulk you can actually produce them through fermentation process or through chemically but that’s where one of the application the common application that you can see so the mechanism of enzymes that is basically your official lock and key model which is the most common that we are aware of so it was proposed in 1898 by EML Fisher so you have the active side which is rigid and there’s no change in the active side so the actic side if it is an l shaped it will remain L-shaped you cannot change it so only subset which are L shaped which can fit into that active site will be able to come and bind to the enzymes so substrate is a key that fits the lock of the enzyme and that’s when the chemical reaction will move forward similarly there is another one which is costance induced fit model now this is where you’re basically forcing the active site to take the shape of your substate Atri side might be of different shape and size but you’ll take the shape of the substrate so it’s flexible so which one would be better this one or the rigid one for larger application you want something which is much more flexible for specific application you want something which is very very specific right I’ll just give you that as a hint this will come in your case study think about it later on now enzyme engineering why do we need that why do I need it to modify enzymes we need to modify enzymes for the industrial and other applications so designing enzymes by changing the amino acid sequences through recombinant DNA technology that’s where your directed Evolutions comes into picture is one way of uh modifying it now enzymes exist in nature are taken and modified with random mutagenesis sorry this is direct mutagen sorry Evolution the other one is not my mistake please and you start with a protein from the public database which is your pdb you focus on its active SES and you place the reagent or the substrate in a way to catalyze the reaction now you would have heard in the bioinformatics uh about drug delivery or no drug Discovery and this drugs Discovery is through drug design in biof formatics they do that a lot what do they do it what do they do there sorry so are they designing drugs that will fit the enzyme or they are designing enzyme that will fit the drug think think once you’re ready for your answer you can raise your hand we’ll give you the mic and then you can answer that so are you designing your enzymes to fit the drug or you’re designing the drug to fit the enzyme you would have heard this term right sir yeah sir actually we are designing the enzyme because uh there is two kinds of docking when you do it like rigid docking and flexible docking yes so when it comes to flexible docking we particularly select a particular uh like of the pting structure we select a particular reason where it’s binding so when you take rid doing is take take a like a huge section of the enzyme but in uh this one flexible docking we take a specific section me we decrease the area which uh to where that phys chemical compound which will later on serve as a drug is binding to the enzyme so your enzyme structure Remains the Same or you’re you’re changing the enzyme structure and if you are changing the enzyme structure in your docking process how are you doing that uh are you using different types of enzymes or you’re randomly deciding you know what it should it will look really good if it looks like an s or it looks like a or b how do you do that so basically uh during the first uh we they go for blind doing Blind docking it like we see which particular section or which chain is the part chemical compound is binding yes then we select that particular section we decrease the area and to increase the efficiency where it’s actually binding so uh I believe it’s uh uh it changing the structure of the enzyme so mean to increase we you’re trying to increase the specificity specificity yeah to in before that you have your enzyme you have your drug multiple drugs yes you do a blind yeah docking right whichever fits yes sir whichever fits and then you start looking studying the active s yeah that is part of engineering enzymes yes sir so your bioinformatics that you are studying right now is also synthetic biology it’s also part of your engineering enzymes I just wanted to break that so because you under students of biotechnology some of the graduate students here so you should be if you are able to go back to that particular course refresh some of those parts you will get a much better idea okay so why should I modify enzymes we would need to modif enzymes to produce enzymes for industrial other application that was already there and the other part is to improve the stability and the activity of the enzymes as he was discussing about uh the drug Discovery aspect if you are changing the structure of the enzymes you might be able to uh bind it to more drug there are some specific drugs that will work if if you have multiple components that can work against your or sorry multiple drugs that can work against a specific disease if you can make the modification in such a way that all those drugs can work then you the cost is less it’s not just one drug is available in the market you can have multiple options right so increase operating time of enzymes and the duration to minimize the cost the other aspect of Eng generable enzyme would be the properties what are the things that we are basically modifying or what are the things that we are trying to modify so you have your uh the PH range under which they will act the thermal stability of it the solvent uh tolerance these are all the operational parameters and the substate product tolerance now these things will get used when we are working with the fermentation process and we are using these enzymes in the fermentation process and if you’re looking at from the the reaction perspective itself you’re looking at the different substrate ranges that it can work with the specificity of the enzyme to a specific substrate the novel reactivities like the reactions that it can generate the co-actor use and the kinetic properties how quickly it can run that specific reaction or how quickly quickly it can catalyze that specific reaction the other would be the immobilization and collocation now this is basically based on where exactly you’re locating it I will not go into that that is mostly on the structural basis how easy is the access to the active sites so if you want to make your enzymes much more accessible you can engineer them in such a way that active sites are outward most of the time so that you can bind to the substrate much more effectively and much more specifically so that will improve the overall reaction process okay what would be the easiest way to do that if I give you an enzyme just for our conversation so let’s say if I give you an enzyme which and those enzymes will have the polar surface area non-polar surface areas right and the active SES will have the polar sides and the non-polar sides because not all molecules that are on the surface of the protein are polar in nature some of them would be non-polar in nature so when you look at the very first diagram that we had uh this one so let’s say all the whites are the polar all the blues are the non-polar so you have sides different sides it might be the other way around but you have sides so my question there is sorry coming back here I got lost so you have your enzymes with the polar and the non-polar part how do I change it like what what what will I do to its environment that it might change its surface structure itself what can I do to the enzyme what is the inherent property of a biological system a biological system always wants to be in the most stable State possible right structurally so if there is a balance between the polar and the non-polar sides for us if I change the pH of the surrounding the protein will try to rearrange a structure in such a way that it is reaching that balance again right if I change the temperature and the pH I’m forcing it to change faster maybe but changing the environment the pH specifically because isoelectric points are involved there right if I change that it might change the structure of the active sides so that’s why optimizing the the pH the temperature during a fermentation process or any biochemical process is very important because if you are not able to maintain the conditions that are required for a reaction to occur you are going to lose producing the product that of or your the product of Interest so that’s why because when we are working with proteins when we are working with enzymes Things become a bit more complex you want things to be very very rigid in terms of the the temperature range or the PH range but if you are able to engineer these components in such a way that they are able to uh take care of their self for a specific range of temperature or specific range of pH there’s no modification in their structure that would be an amazing opportunity because that will reduce the rigidity of the process so the process might vary a little bit up and down but you still get the product of your interest you’re getting the point what I’m trying to explain right if it was very rigid like if my enzyme is only possible is only active let’s say at a ph7 what if my pH reduces to 6.8 will it be active anymore it won’t but what if it it works between the pH of 6.5 and 7.5 it will be because it will not change itself it will not change its structure within that range it will change the structure if it goes out of those range that is what we want through engineering enzymes we we want it to be much more flexible this is my understanding of engineering enzymes if you read uh literature you might get something else but this is my understanding of it now the engineering enzyme approaches that we have here so you have your engineered enzymes let’s say which is 20x uh increase in the half lifee at 70° C so you are working with liases so you do the solvent optimization you do a substrate product tolerance of it you improve the stability of it you do a site directed mutagenesis and then you do a computational design of it this whole approach is part of your engineering enzyme or enzyme engineering we are using the same synthetic biology tools to make modifications towards enzymes if we go back I might change the the slides here let me go back very very very quickly when we were discussing about the volum biomolecular engineering the example that you see here is of uh new random mutations are introduced in the genes for selected enzymes the cycle begins so you have your DNA you do a random mutations in it so this is your directed mutagenesis like you’re doing a directed Evolution now all these random mutations might lead to formation of different enzymes like same enzymes with different characteristics right and then you would be able to identify these mutations now you keep on doing that and then you see the changed enzymes are tested those that are more efficient at catalyzing a specific desired chemical reaction are the one or the mutations that are involved in that so what you have done is like you have it’s not just one DNA that you made the change you have multiple DN right so for one you did this for another one you did this for one you did this you kept on making different types of changes and you let it grow they produce the enzymes with the modification now that modification you test it against what you wanted to use those enzymes for whichever one worked you go back and see which which mutation actually led to that you take that strain and and then you continue it’s a very simple process right if you if you see it from this perspective it’s a very simple process but it’s a very effective one it’s long but it’s also very effective okay so directed Evolution mostly for enzymes and proteins for your case study to you have to think about directed Evolution they I don’t want you to blame me later on that I didn’t help so I’m helping you out little bit by little bit so you have your case study one idea we will discuss about that I think I have already talked about that in synthetic biology case study 2 comes in engineering enzymes most of the times sorry not most of the times for this year now let’s get into the established techniques of engineering enzymes we have already discussed this this is your directed Evolution which we talked about the novo design is brand new design you take the sequence you design your own enzymes based on what you want it to work with this is costly but sometimes important when you’re trying to develop drugs specific drugs it’s a very costly process but it’s an important process but you have to do multiple validations it has to be go through so you have your active side modeling you change the sequences of uh the enzymes itself and then uh you have the same irrational mutagenesis uh where your random and side directed mutagenesis are conducted uh you have your sequence of interest in there and then rational mutagenesis and then you have direct Evolution this is in my view the most common one and the most effective one the directed Evolution now entic degradation of various types of plastics uh this is an uh a paper or the work done by Cho at all in 2024 this is a recent paper I will show you the reference or you have the reference list in this particular slide deck at the very end so if you get a chance do download the paper and read about it if you’re interested in microplastics so different micros will generate enzymes which would be breaking these microplastics now the point is can I change the type of enzymes a particular microbe will produce by changing the feed stock that it is feeding on it’s just a question I’m not I’m honestly even I am thinking about the answer right now while I’m asking the question but is it possible do you think it is possible to change the type or to generate a specific enzyme by changing the feed stock because we under in my understanding not the whole DNA is expressed at a given time depending upon what sort of feed stock I am having my DNA might get expressed and that expressed DNA might develop a different type of enzyme time do you agree with this idea you will see some microbes thriving with this change in the source the carbon source that they get for their growth and that’s how they are capable of working or digesting the microplastics they’re digesting the Plastics these things these are some some other sequence in the DNA that gets activated this is my understanding of it which was hidden which was not active earlier but suddenly it got activated because the source of the carbon that they had is not there anymore so they have to somehow adapt their whole biochemical Machinery to take into account this carbon source which they can eat and survive and mutations move faster right so if one pro was not able to survive some mutation would have taken place for the survival of the second one the third one and the fourth one the fifth one and keep on going that mutation will keep on going and then you’ll come up you’ll end up with a a a strain that would be capable of digesting microplastics completely so that research is very very fascinating on microplastics so now this uh micro orms are inhibiting sorry inhabiting various surfaces of microplastics and they release various types of extracellular enzymes so you can see the list of enzymes here uh which are able to degrade these microplastics into smaller fragments so petas is the one which is going to digest the pet and then you have uh the lipases the proteases uh laccases cutinases so there are a lot of enzymes which are produced from different types of uh uh the materials so for the plas PSS for the pets these are the enzymes so which one can work on which type of biopolymer now enzyme mediated microplastic degradation would also involve protein engineering strategies which are employed in the modification of enzymes that can help intergradation of plastics so if you’re able to make modifications to enzymes in such a way that you can develop it that uh develop the active sites that can digest the microplastics that would be one way of interacting with uh enzyme engineering now comes uh the idea of synthetic biology the systems biology and the en engineering it’s a very interdisiplinary area just like your biotechnology it’s a very interdisiplinary area so understanding of system biology synthetic biology uh some of the computational aspect where you’re using python which can use into bioinformatics using blast fasta uh and learning the DNA sequence Technologies all of this will give you the main which encompasses everything this is why I said understanding synthetic biology will help you pretty much understand enzymes enzyme engineering and systems biology now it comes the systems biology part so holistic and dynamic interactions within the biological systems is required so the whole is greater than the sum of its part what it means is that understanding the whole of an equal let’s say I just I don’t want to understand just pathway of the equalize I would like to study the whole metabolic pathway of the equalize what are the pathways different Pathways that are there and how they are mapped if I know how it is mapped I would be able to engineer it in a much better way for my own benefit it’s like uh Jack of all trade master of none but you really want to become master of one in this case so you want to understand everything you don’t want want to be like just little bit of this pathway that pathway you want to understand the whole map of equal life how each and every pathways are interrelated what product comes out what product doesn’t come out and once you have that information you’ll be able to engineer it for your own usage so that comes under system biology so system biology is an interdisiplinary science that studies the complex interactions and the collection Collective behavior of a cell or an organism so your Genet genes will basically give you your molecular networks the molecular networks give out your cellular networks and the cellular networks gives out your organ networks now genes will lead to phenotypes right but those phenotypes that whole process to reach that phenotypic effect you have a metabolic pathway in between right and it’s not just one gene that is involved in that particular phenotype there are multiple genes that would be involved into giving that specific phenotype to you so understanding the interaction between those gen understanding the interaction between the metabolic pathice of those genes that led to that phen uh phenotypic change is part of the systems biology so this would be an example so you have an existing drug so let’s say if there is a patient uh that patient requires that drug to get rid of a specific disease so you give that drug to the patient whether and then you get a thumbs up or thumbs down whether it worked or it doesn’t work right so that’s a straightforward way of doing it but before any drug is launched we always try to understand its efficacy you remember the term that we I used last yesterday right the the doo 650 why 650 why 650 Mig because that 650 mg is more than enough to reduce your fever that’s why we cannot say how many glasses of orange juice you have to drink to be cancer free because we don’t know the dosage value so dosage is very uh is very easy to give for the chemicals because we can develop that efficacy so but that comes out only from clinical trials that dosage value comes out from the clinical trials even your covid-19 vaccines the one which we got in India I think that was astrogenic covid Shield that was developed by astrogenic that or astrogenic we call them same thing and uh rest of the world it was fiser and Monna yeah so Monna and fiser they were mRNA sorry M mRNA based right now this mRNA base that was an amazing application of synthetic biology in developing a vaccine now think about it just for a moment just to develop a single vaccine you have heard about flu shots like people get a flu shot or flu vaccine like in North America we always get like every flu season there’s a vaccine but that particular vaccine is good for the flu or the whatever the the host was last year not this year so I got the flu sh before I came to India but I got the flu sh for the flu that was last year this year one comes next year so it’s it’s a long process because they have to sequence it identify develop the vaccine and then only then you get it right but how was this covid vaccine produced so quickly it happened and within a few months the vaccine was available that’s why we were able to save so many people right it was all because of the understanding that we have had through systems biology the Sy synthetic biology because once we knew how the whole Pathways work we were able to do that genetic circuits create take out the sequence which was impacting the active sites related develop the vaccine and make it ready for the market it was so quick but it took a lot of time but you do need that clinical trial aspect to it right that is where existing drugs come into F so where you have to go for the clinical trial so you have your molecular biology you do the clinical trial and that you develop mathematical model using the system biology thing and then you can have this personalized drug which would work for the patient because not everything will work for the patient I’ll give you an example to it so rosasa a rosu or R it’s much more easier so R which is a cholesterol lowering drug its interaction is consistent it’s it’s like it’s a very consistent drug from one human to another human it does not it has nothing to do with your uh what is that called variabilities so like the model helped researchers understand why the drug Works consistently despite genetic variability it will keep on changing now it was mostly physiology like you have these two terms like pharmacokinetics and phod dnamic model both of these models were used to develop this particular drug so how the like once you take the drug how does it travel within your body that was understood what is the site at which it will go and work that was understood once it reached the site what does it do that was understood UD once you have all of that information you can develop a drug that would be consistent for me consistent for you consistent for the other it will work in every human person with the same efficacy that understanding comes from understanding of the systems biology I don’t want you to like remember this I’m just giving this as an example this is an application of systems biology the other comes the omix and the Cascades of the omix for understanding your system biology because you need to understand each and every metabolic pathways and the proteins that are being generated by each and every Gene the rnas you have to go for epigenomics you have to go for genomics transcriptomics proteomics metabolomics cellomics and the single cellomics once you have all of this information you can make maps or networks so you’ll have this particular so let’s say this is a genetic sequence this is giving this this is giving to another Pathways this will lead to other set of reactions and so on so you will be able to make a genetic map or metabolic map of the whole sequence and this particular casket is basically your flow of information through the biological systems it gives you the hierarchy of how the things go through so you have your hones modification DNA methylations 3D organization of Chromatin that goes into DNA then DNA gives you RNA RNA gives protein protein gives you metabolize metabolize gives you cell functions and the phenotypes and then you’re getting back so synthetic biology and systems biology have a synergistic relationship so system biology is understanding integration and prediction using computational models so once you have all that information using all the omix you can develop mathematical models synthetic biology is control design and Engineering using computation model you’re designing new things specific uh molecular events so you combine both of them you get where the system and the synthetic biologies are used in Synergy to have a desired system Behavior so if you want your system to act in a special way or specific way use both systems biology and synthetic biology understanding of both the sector and then you’ll be able to get uh what you want most commonly for Therapeutics and Drug Discovery it is very necessary that you have these understandings so if you have a background in molecular biology if you have interest in molecular biology cellular biology develop more of that interest in computational biology look into systems biology look into Synn biology use that and buy informatics for sure for drug Discovery so these are the references the Choy at all should be somewhere here if not I’ll will find it yeah so this one is the paper so recent advances in microb enzy entic engineering for biodegradation of micro and nanop Plastics so this is one of the papers that my student was following for his research and he helped me develop the slides for for this particular session we’ll take a break for 15 minutes and then we’ll get back for your case studies we’ll have a brief discussion about it because we have a complete session on this case study 1 and case study 2 later but I want to I want you to understand what they are what we are asking for and it will also require you to work in groups if you can divide yourself into groups depending upon your own comfort zone I am I’m not aware who is comfortable with whom so if you can divide yourself into groups that would be easier because you would be working let’s say on like sort of like a term paper at the very end but it’s not I’m not asking you to write me a 50 page or 60 page term paper I would like you to develop the whole process for me so if this is the product that I want this was the approach that I followed so I first went here identified the sequence I did this this is the host that I selected why I selected what was a criteria that was based on it what I did after that and how I did it and what sort of fermentation system will I choose to grow this particular product and what would be the process proc parameters so you might have to do some Google searches but it would be an interesting experience because this is exactly how we develop research projects as researchers we only know the product now we have to develop the whole experimentation so cool so we’ll take a 15 minutes break and then we get back here welcome back after the second break now for today we have had enough of uh the theory aspect uh what I would like you to do now is relax a little bit think about your case study the case study one the case study two these two are the most interesting part of the whole Gan session in my viewpoint uh what I would like you to do and I think I have actually had ask this on the very first day that you do need to divide yourself into groups so for the case study one case study 2 on the very last day that would be the Friday we will be you’ll be presenting a couple of slides from each and every group so if you divide yourself into four groups or five groups depending on that you’ll be presenting a slide on your case study one for the case study one session and the on case study 2 for the case study 2 session and we’ll have a conversation an interaction you will be questioned by your colleagues and you’ll also be questioned by me why you chose a specific host why do you choose a specific reactor design why did you choose these parameters what was the intent if you’re choosing 10° Cel what is the reasoning for 10° celus you should have answers to those type of questions and if there is something missing I will try my best to answer those part of the questions for you okay and that that would be a very interactive session so my humble request is do divide yourself into groups and uh give your group a fancy name not something that would be hurtful to others but something that will add value like something that you will be interested in to like let’s call your yourself as a startup in that case so give that a startup name and then we can go ahead from there okay but this part of the session I’m just going to give you a brief idea of what I’m expecting for your case study 1 and case study 2 okay so the case study one was developing a plant protein so the protein that I wanted or I want you to develop is monoline now monoline is a single Alpha Helix packed against five an sorry anti parallel beta strands in a bet graph fold 16 fold is500 the most important part of the modeling is 1 1500 so three 3,000 times sweeter than sucrose say it’s an alternative to Sugar not like Stevia better than Stevia it’s a protein okay it’s a plant protein I would like you to develop a process one which you are seeing there is the one which I would be I would be using so the host microorganism that I would have chosen would be uh just that’s a yeast I have the amino acid sequence I have not provided you a DNA sequence you need to tell me what would be the sequence for your plasmid or whatever uh process you’re using for inserting your DNA into any host and then how are you going to transfer it into to your reactor what would be the feed stock in the reactor do you need any growth factors or nutrients what would be those nutrients you would be able to identify or find those information online on Google you don’t have to go through uh a tons of research articles even if you do a normal regular Google search you would be able to identify enough information to answer that question okay and then once you get your product whether it is intracellular or extracellular depending upon the host you choose and what would be the purification and downstream processing steps that you will choose and to add little complexity to it I would like you to perform a simple tea which is your technoeconomic analysis in a technoeconomic analysis you look at what would be the cost of your raw material what would be the cost of the handling of the raw material uh whether the technology exist if it is available ready available in the market so let’s say if you’re looking at sonicator for purification or extraction of uh your intracellular uh protein then bless you if you’re looking at intercellular protein you you are going to use sonication to do the cell lices what is the cost of a sonicator you identify that on Google I’m not asking you to give me the perfect value to it but I’m give I’m asking you to give me an idea how you will approach because the problem is what I want want you to understand is that when we develop a particular product it’s not just the value of the product depends on the process itself so if I’m if I have a very costly process but I also have a super costly or super valuable product I would love to invest because I’m still making money right so if if modelin is going to replace the whole sugar industry in the food industry if I’m going to capture the whole food industry why will I not invest even if the the the process is costly I’ll do that so that technoeconomic analysis that’s why I want you to work in groups because then you can divide the different stages of the production between yourself and then you can identify the economic analysis for those sections and then you are going to present it to us on the very last day as part of the session okay and then we can have a very good conversation why your product costs more and their product cost less and we can look at you can have a competition who is going to sell me model for cheaper prices okay so the benefits of monoline is the Dig has no impact on the blood sugar level that’s why I’m very very interested in it but this is the biggest constraint a heat treatment over 50° C at low PH denatures monoline question for you then how will I use it in food industry because the products if I let’s say if I’m adding sugar to a juice I’m going to add it before the pasteurization or after the pasturization if I have to maintain it the structure what if I add before if I’m adding it as a natural sweetener at home and then as I’m making tea I add sugar before as the tea is boiling I’m adding the sugar to it right so the the protein will denature what will you do to pre uh prevent that think about it okay so that can be a part of your solution people have actually answered this in the in the during the day session how will you preserve something which is thermally sensitive you just take a starge that’s the max hint I can give and then you do whatever you want okay the second case stud study that we are going to discuss on Friday is developing a microbial protein now here we are going to work with Alpha mileage so you’re going to produce Alpha mileage which is an enzyme so all enzymes are proteins but not all proteins are enzymes so I’m taking the benefit of that and giving you an enzyme how will you get Alpha milees so there is a process that I would use if you are going to use the same process I don’t mind if all of your all the groups are going to use the same process I won’t mind you can change it if you would like to uh but I would love to know the host that you are going to use to grow these for the fermentation process and what would be the purification process that you will follow for that okay Alpha Ames in bacteria used for breakdown of starch as source of energy it is used in production of food detergents bioethanol and paper the if you remember the example that I gave you when the cats pee in specific area you have the urine a mileage is is ALS is used for degradation purpose because it acts as a detergent too right for the cleaning and removal of the aroma so in bread for reducing hardness uh enhancing elasticity and delaying stalling and for the gene modification you can the gene modification would be required to get certain properties of to the enzymes right we do directed Evolution because we want to change the property of the enzymes we want to make it much more stable we want to make it viable at uh higher temperature ranges or pH ranges right so depending upon what sort of process you will choose you would be affecting the property of your enzyme I’m choosing Alpha amyes because that’s a very common enzyme and most of even if you are from the background of food you will have some understanding of alpha mileage okay so use that and I wish you all the luck for that uh to work in a group and come up with the solutions so do you think these two case studies are good enough for you or you want another one two or more more than enough okay so I’ll keep it at two and uh some of the tools that you can use for yourself would be your the blast if in case you are trying to identify the sequence for monoline I have only if you have taken a picture of my slide you would only get the sequence of the amino acid you’re not getting the sequence of the DNA you have to find the sequence of the DNA okay so take as many pictures as you want and if I’m there in that picture I would be I will not mind that but anyways uh so blast faster you can think about brushing up your B informatic skills a little bit if not you can look into YouTube how to do certain things or if you can take help make your group in such a way that somebody knows what to do okay you can use the pdb database Bank all proteins are sorry all enzymes are proteins but not other way around so if you want to know more about Alpha mileage where will you go pdb okay if you want to know more about modelin you will go pdb so use these tools and databases to gain more insight you’ll also be able to find the source who would have worked first on monin you can read those research articles those are freely available or you can look into those research articles how they got it okay that would be it thank you for the session today

Day3-PRECISION FERMENTATION FOR SUSTAINABLE MANUFACTURING OF BIO-ACTIVES AND INDUSTRIAL BIOCHEMICALS



Day 3 | GIAN Course on “PRECISION FERMENTATION FOR SUSTAINABLE MANUFACTURING OF BIO-ACTIVES AND …

what enzyme engineering is system biology is synthetic biology is now you can Implement those to tweak your host or even tweak your product or type of product that you are expecting after the fermentation process but the question would be what sort of reactor will you choose and uh what are the different types of reactors that are available why we actually look into bi reactors in one way or other and what would be the design principles that are involved when you’re are actually designing a bi reactor for a specific purpose now before I start the lecture for today I did receive a question with respect to the case study 2 that we were discussing yesterday do you all have any questions with respect to what you are going to do in your case study one or case study 2 what I have provided you with respect to the case studies was the product what you have to do is go backward develop the whole process okay now the product that I have stated might not be the final product it’s just it might be just the the the the product that would have received from the industry but it cannot be consumed let’s say monoline cannot be consumed if it is not heat stable right enzymes are also not heat stable so the alpha mileage that you will produce how do you want to sell it if you want to sell it do you want to encapsulate it do you don’t want to encapsulate it what would be the optimum way of producing the final product has to be decided by you not me okay let’s start the lecture for today so we are going to start our conversation with bioreactor design and Analysis but before we get into the design and Analysis part we will talk a bit more about the bi reactors we have covered majority part of the bi reactors how they are implemented or how they are used with respect to your cellular Agriculture and precision fermentation but we’ll re uh I say like we’ll go through it again so bi reactors as you can see from the picture here uh those are the huge ones and all those pipes that you see here those are the controls or any of the inlets that are providing the substate inside the bi reactor so it’s a pretty complex unit when you look at it it’s a very complex unit when you operate it actually looks very complex but it’s a very simple system in principle it’s a very simple system what it does is very simple but the way it has to be operated is very complex and that’s the reason why you have to have the engineering design principles involved here and we need to understand how to design a bi reactor now we are using enzymes plants and animal cells or we are even using microbes as our hosts uh enzymes if you’re just providing a substrate you put in the enzymes you can get the substrate converted into the product directly plant and animal cells we have already discussed multiple times they can be used as a host to produce your product of Interest microbes are widely used as a source uh as a host for to produce your product of Interest so then there are different types of products that we do developed so there will be the bio conversion products where you have the substrate being converted into product biot transformation where one product sorry one substate has been transformed into a product and the recombinate products is what we have discussed as part of the Precision fermentation where we are developing the product using Rec component DNA technology so we have genetically modified our host to produce the product of Interest so a bioreactor by definition is a device in which a substrate of low value is utilized by living cells or enzymes to generate products with of higher value now substrate of low value if you are using pure glucose or pure fructose or gcto they are not cheap they are abundant but they are not cheap when we do talk about low value uh substrates we are thinking about the feed stock so let’s say if we are able to utilize the agricultural waste so that’s the reason why I give this particular definition there but majority of the times the final product that you’re developing that is of super high value so that’s why the substrate cost doesn’t matter much even if you are using galactose sucrose fructose to produce your product if the final product has a way much more higher market value your subs cost will not be of any concern correct that’s the same case that you will have in your case study one if the monoline is able to capture the whole Market or the whole food industry Market with respect to the sweetener part that particular product is going to have a pretty high value a market value so your Capital cost involved in terms of choosing the substrate might be might not be of concern to you okay so be wise when you’re doing the technomic analysis you would be able to figure it out what should be your input what should be your output and how you you going to do that now the the bi reactors have been used to produce different types of products some of those that I have mentioned here so vitamin B12 uh that those are produced by through Genetically Enhanced microbes uh that develop it through one step fermentation process using vegetable oil as a feed stock and sugar as a nutrient we have Genetically Enhanced microbes producing baking enzymes used to enhance Rising strengthen D and prolong freshness we have already discussed how the enzymes will basically uh provide the sensory aspect to our products right microbes and fungi are Genetically Enhanced to produce enzymes that are added to as brightening and cleaning agent we did discuss about that uh the proteas enzymes and the lipas enzymes the lipases are mostly used to remove grease uh you would have heard about uh natural no not natural but bio compostable detergents they’re not uh not the regular detergent uh liquid detergents but they are like uh compatible more environmentally friendly they actually have more of these enzymes genetically enhanced enzymes or genetically produced enzymes now bassilus micros ferment corn sugar to make lactic acid which is heated to create biodegradable polymers for Wen fabrics and these are the ones which are used to make uh diapers for kids for babies now this example this particular slide shows different examples of fermentation system like how fermentation has been used but majority of the examples that I provided are are more inclined towards a recombinant DNA technology right always using a genetically modified organism to produce a product because currently that’s the norm the regular fermentation we are using uh Sach servy to convert barley into alcohol right those will be the regular fermentation the traditional fermentation so traditional fermentation is still going on they still use the same type of bi reactors even in there you have to choose whether you’re going to go for a specific B reactor which might be a batch reactor or fed batch or a continuous stir tank reactor or even a plug flow reactor so there are different types of reactors that you can use now what will you use for majority of your Precision fermentation processes that is what my interest was and that’s the reason why we have these examples okay so biochemical synthesis versus chemical synthesis uh why biochemical synthesis uh is better is because it is mild reaction conditions you’re not using very harsh reaction conditions if you remember uh from the slides of yesterday where we are producing the PTA at that time we were looking at Cobalt manganese being used those are harsh chemicals which are basically being used it has a very high Regio and stereo Selec uh selectivity because if you’re using enzymes you have the capability of this is sustainable if you are using a sustainable feed stock uh it has a better product yield we did compare if you remember we did compare the pet with the conventional p uh non-toxic and undesirable waste as uh byproducts so they are non-toxic in nature and the byproducts which are produced are not toxic either and they can be used further for other purposes if need B and it is more environment friendly so the ghg emissions and all those things are reduced because you are changing the feed stock by using a cheaper feed stock or a waste as a feed stock you can reduce the overall ghg and you can make it a very carbon neutral system you know what carbon neutrality is so let’s say you have plants now you use the plants to make fiber you use that fiber for making clothes now once the clothes uh like the production of the clothes the CO2 which is generated so let’s say this is the industry which is producing the clothes they are generating the CO2 now this CO2 is again used by the plant to make to grow right so basically it becomes a carbon neutral cycle so that is what I’m talking about so it’s more environment friendly High Regio and stereo selectivity if you’re using enzymes enzymes have the lock and key functionality right so depending upon the active sites it might and the substrate that you are going to use it would be very selective to that particular substrate so if you are using multiple substrate but you only want one substrate to be used you can actually use that so that that’s what it is trying to say so you have the regional and the IO selectivity thank you sir now this is an example of a typical bioprocess that you can see so you have your media and nutrients which are coming in through ultra filtration into a bioreactor you have water which is being added to the bio reactor through reverse osmosis air is being passed in to provide the oxygen to the bioreactor and then you have once the cells have grown to a specific concentration they are moved into membrane filteration now where the after the membrane filteration some of that cell go back as cell recycle or you can harvest the rest of the cell some you put back some you reh harvest and whatever product you have had after the membran filtration you can do the downstream process Downstream processing so this is your Downstream processing now this is where the maximum cost is now just a quick question why do we do a cell recycle any ideas sir when we operate at high dilution rate we do not want our C Mass biomass to decrease in a Biore reactor okay we have gone way much more in advance we have have not reached the dilution rate yet in our discussion but to a certain extent yes but more of to maintain the same culture you don’t want to change the batch of your culture right you want to maintain the consistency so what is the best example of cell recycle in your day-to-day life yeah yogurt and CD right at home so you keep the culture after you have finished the yogurt you keep a little bit of it so you can reuse it so that maintains a consistency cell recycle allows you to maintain that consistency okay oh I could have asked another question the media and the nutrients that are being added into the bioreactor they go through ultra filtration why you need them to be clean but you also need them to be sterile anything that is added into the bio reactor has to be sterile except the cells okay all the nutrients and the media that is added into the bioreactor at all times has to be sterile it cannot have any contamination because the moment you have a contamination you’re going to change the whole profile of your bioreactor inside right now this is a typical bioprocess I’m not saying that this is a bioreactor design that we are following but what type of bioreactor will this be it has an input and it has an output if it was a continuous input and output it becomes a cstr a continuous third tank reactor right if it has only an input it becomes a Fed batch if it has no input no output it becomes batch right you most of you have the background in B technology would have taken a course in BIO process so I know that you’re aware of it for those who don’t there three types batch fed batch continuous so design of a bio process depends on a couple of things the most important would be how fast will the process take place so the reaction kinetics what changes can be expected to occur like what would be the metabolic State what would be the cell physiology that would be reached and how will be the system be operated and controlled to provide the maximum yield and productivity so what sort of design of reactor we are going to use and what sort of instrumentation and control we are going to have so what would be the temperature profile what would be the pH profile how much oxygen is going to be purged what would be the speed of the impeller within the bi reactor all that has to be controlled that comes under the the topic of process control and instrumentation design if you’re looking into chemical engineering that would be process control instrumentation design so so another aspect of the design of a bioprocess would be how will be the products be separated or recovered with maximum Purity so the downstream processing now we have discussed to a certain extent in detail about Downstream processing uh we did talk a little bit about the temperature and the pH yesterday when we were discussing about the enzymes and how they might impact the the structure of the enzymes so if you if let’s say I am assuming that you are aware what a cell culture looks like okay so if you have a flask have you ever seen a flask with a cell in it in the microbiology if you have taken a course in microbiology you would have seen that right now if I heat it what will happen to the cells they will die right so temperature so the moment let’s say if the cell cultures were at 25° C that’s the normal room temperature right now okay so 25° C which is a normal room temperature if I slowly increase this temperature all the way to 70° c will they start dying the moment I start increasing the temperature or will they die after we have reached a specific threshold temperature so once we have reached a threshold temperature right so temperature actually sometimes will promote cell growth eventually once you have reached a threshold it will start dying so you will see that the cell will start growing and then and this would be the temperature at which or T Max that you can actually have now the reaction kinetics like how fast will the the process take place it is very very important if you’re looking it from the chemical engineering uh perspective the chemical reactors using chemicals as your substrate and the product that you get is also a chemical you are providing a catalyst you have to control the temperature and the pressure everything now some of the reactions are super fast some of the reactions take time right and that’s the reason why we add catalyst so that we can increase the speed of the reaction then some of the reactions are exothermic some of the reactions are endothermic right when they’re exothermic what does that mean thank you for the unity I would prefer if one person can answer that energy will be needed endothermic so when when you’re releasing the energy into the system that’s exothermic so that means you’re increasing the temperature of the system am I correct endothermic you are absorbing the energy does do that mean that I’m reducing the temperature of the system yeah EXO yes or no EXO will relase Endo will take so if I’m absorb if I’m doing an endothermic reaction does the temperature of the system decreases thermodynamics 101 tell me what will happen to the entropy of the system in an endothermic reaction it will reduce right the temperature might not there are different exceptional cases but temperature might not okay so this see your thermodynamics is now involved down here you have to have a background in thermodynamics if you want to do a b Rea design so engineering background is very much required now what changes can be expected to occur when we looking at the metabolic State the cell physiology so if we are aware of how the which metabolic pathway is going to be followed by our cells we we would be able to provide them with the right nutrients which would be required for that metabolic Pathway to get you the product of Interest okay so understanding that will also help uh understanding what is the growth uh rate or how quickly our cells will double what would be the physiology what would be the concentration of ourselves later on will also help in designing the body reactor understanding that the the thing that I’m trying to State here is that whether I’m going to choose an equal ey or whether I’m going to choose an yeast that depends on the product that I want to grow but it also depends on how well they grow right so understanding that is very very important when you’re designing a bioprocess now what is an efficient bioprocess when ever we talk about efficiency efficiency has to be defined in terms of time efficiency can be defined in terms of money if it is able to make you more money it’s an efficient process if it is able to save you money it is an efficient process if it takes less time makes you more product it’s an efficient process other than that it also depends on the production of organism it depends on optimal conditions for the desired products if you’re using the optimal condition for a desired product you’re going to have a very efficient bio process the product value will Define your efficiency of the bioprocess and the scale of production if you’re able to produce in Mass a grand scale or a large scale you would be able to make more money out of it and your process would be an efficient process like setting up a startup you should be able to make some money at the very end so this includes so when we are trying to do uh the efficiency calculation we have to look into the size of the reactor the type of the reactor and the method of operation that we are going to use which is which will give you the best for a given conversion so if you’re converting Pro subset a into product B you should be you should make the right choice in terms of choosing the right reactor the right size of the reactor right a a single person does not need an airplane a lot of people will require an airplane let’s say if I’m a billionaire I will definitely need an airplane but I’m just saying in terms of like as a single person I can I I might be happy with a bicycle to reach from point A to point B so depending upon your need you have to make the right choice in terms of choosing the right reactor the type of the reactor the size of the reactor because all of that will Define how much how energy efficient your process would be if you’re choosing a bigger reactor for a smaller reaction or for a smaller product size your your your efficiency is less okay now the bioreactor design uh there are a couple of other things that are involved in it so those would be your control and the positivity positively influence the the biological reactions and you have to prevent contamination the capital investment and the operating cost we have already discussed that so during fermentation maintenance of monos septic condition is very very important so anything and any everything that is added inside is sterile so the nutrients that are going in are sterile so you’re only growing one microb inside the or the microb that you have put in the culture that you have put in is the only thing that is growing inside the reactor you’re not making any you’re not adding any contaminant to it you’re not adding any other microbial uh colonies to it or any other microbial population to it so optimal mixing with low and uniform Shear rate now why do we need optimal mixing in terms of a bioreactor and why do we need a uniform Shear rate optimal mixing will help to homogeneously distribute the nutrient and and oxygen if you’re sparging oxygen uniform Shear rate if if you’re able to identify the optimum Shear rate or optimal movement of the Sparger or the rotational speed of the Sparger the mixing would be ideal you’re not going to break your cells if you make your SP sorry not the spares uh sorry your impeller if you make your impeller to run fast you might break your cells that will lead to cell lices then comes the areation uh surface or direct sparging or in direct so depending upon what will provide you the best and Optimum O2 distribution within the bi reactor if it is an aerobic uh if it requires aerobic conditions you need to identify the best way of providing that Iration into the bi reactor so maintenance of adequate heat and mass transfer or and the flow conditions so let’s say for a Fed batch we have to have uh an input let’s say for cstr you have to have an input and an output it has to be maintained in such a way you cannot have a lower output higher input because then your reactor will overflow correct so you have to maintain that optimal condition the balance so that your cell uh the the cultural growth or the silver growth is maintained within the reactor at all time the products and the byproducts removal is also there so to maintain the optimal conditions within now bi reactor uh for that we have to look at like it provides a control level so my mistake so what does B reactor do bioreactor provides you a controllable environment enabling the biochemical and the biomechanical requirements to create a desirable product so you are pro being provided with both the parameters to grow your product to the best of its cap abilities it enables close monitoring and control of the reaction parameters like internal and external Mass transfer heat transfer fluid velocity and sheer stress so one unit operation can provide you all of this control and then you can grow your cell culture within that unit operation this is a diagram of a typical bioreactor the previous one that I had shown that was a diagram for a typical bio process this is a Biore reactor so what are the parts and what are the most important parts for us would be your agitation system that means your impellers the design of your impeller will also be a parameter at one point of time the sensors the sensor probes would be for your pH and the temperature so you’re looking at your pH you’re looking at your temperature what else can I uh use the sensors for dissolve oxygen right do what else the level the no let’s say it’s a batch reactor so the level is maintained so you’re looking at a disolve oxygen you’re looking at the pH you’re looking at the temperature right these are the major sensors what else can be used what else can I sense inside a body conductivity conductivity conductivity why and in what sort of application will you use conductivity sensors majorly conductivity measure like uh for insulin production uh they measure the conduct to uh consider how much Sal Con conentration how much uh is available in or how much if you change your salt concentration that will change your pH also H yes but majorly in Industry level conduct also one of the parameter that can they they do use uh conductivity meters yes the connectivity sensors are there um I personally think if they have been used when you’re working with microwave fuel cells mostly uh cell counting sensors and n proofs have you ever seen I have seen them a bi reactor having that yeah I have I have seen that so when they’re doing the N proofs you said nir proofs I don’t know the full form but they are used to measure the cell like what is the cell count at particular time okay I haven’t had that experience yet so thank you so there are a lot of many sensors now that we can use inside a bi reactor so you have your reactor tank that’s a typical design of a bioreactor you have your feeding pump which is basically used to push in the nutrients inside uh you have your spargers which is going to provide you the areation you have your agitation system to maintain the homogeneous distribution of the nutrients and oxygen you have the thermal jacket now this thermal jacket is to maintain the temperature Within okay so this is a typical diagram so Parts would be agitator baffle now baffles are sometimes here in the corners of the bi reactors in this particular diagram it was not there now why do we add those baffles to remove the vortex right so because when you’re running your Sparger sorry when you’re running your uh stter or your impeller you generate the vortex to break that Vortex you’re going to use the baffles so you have your Sparger the cooling and heating jacket to control the temperature you have your Control Systems typical ones would be temperature pH and dissolve oxygen and thank you for the self count part I will add it now let’s get into the classifications of bioreactors now bioreactors can be classified based on the presence of or absence of oxygen uh before we start discussing that can you tell me the two types of bioreactors that we have actually discussed once uh on the day one I gave I asked you a question about if you have potato peels or let’s say you have uh Orange Peel what sort so either it would be a submerged bi reactor [Music] or or solid state right so that’s also another classification so whether you’re going to use have everything submerged inside or not then you have your in the in the presence of oxygen or in the absence of oxygen so anerobic fermentation so no Iration is required initial preparation of inum may require Iration because you want to grow the cells the gas released during the fermentation is sufficient to provide IDE the mixing so when you are in anerobic production you will have some gas generation within the reactor inside the reactor as the cells are growing and that gas bubble is going to move up as it is going to move up it is going to make the mixing mixing of the nutrients with the cell culture the product recovery may also require anerobic conditions majority of the times uh for if I if I remember correctly in the lab we provide an condition by purging with nitrogen for aerobic fermentation you have non-st erated reactors which would be airlift bubble column reactors in which you’re basically so there is no impeller so it’s mostly being mixed with the Iration uh stirred and irated reactors where you have the stirred tank reactors so cstr would be a part of that some of the batch reactors will be part of that fed batch are also part of that so on the right hand side you can see an example of airlift bi reactors where you have the draft tube internal Loop uh configuration a split cylinder device and then you also have an external loop system so you’ll see majority of these things are moving a very similar design for this would be if you have learned dehydration of food products there is a design of one of the dryer like that what is the name of the dryer where your product is fluidized we call it fluid bed dryer right so it’s it’s because you want to make sure that your air is it’s uniformly distributed your product will drive faster in that case right it’s very simple similar concept ccept applied here or this concept was applied there now based on the modes of operation now this is what we have been discussing I have actually stated these names multiple times so it can be a batch reactor it can be a Fed batch or a continuous dirt tank reactor now when it is a batch reactor no input no output it’s like pressure cooker we put everything inside close it let it run once it’s done give ref you the signal take your product out okay in a Fed batch we can add the nutrients there is no output but we keep on adding the nutrients so the intent of a Fed batch would be to reach the maximum cell Mass right we keep on adding the cell will keep on growing the cells will grow continuously till the time all the substrate that is present in inside the bioreactor is consumed if you keep on adding the substrate the cell mass will keep on growing so the intent of the FED batch reactor can be to have the maximum cell Mass so now from your own understanding and experience that we have had through conversation in the past couple of days where will you use a Fed batch if uh if the product is intracellular right developed intracellularly you want to have the maximum biomass that you can take out crush and take your product out that can be one application where else will you use it will I like to use it in uh let’s say if the product was extracellular and the cell can continuously produce it in that case I can go for a continuous thir tank reactor right so depending upon the type of product that you are going to develop you can choose the right type of reactor right so in the continuous thirdd tank reactor you have your s not and X not your s not is basically your your substrate concentration your substrate at time T that is initial substate concentration or the substrate that is coming inside then you have your X not that is your cell biomass concentration at time tal to Z your initial cell biomass concentration X S and P are your X would be your cell at the end of what is coming out s would be what the substrate that is coming out and P is the product now in a continuous third tank reactor if you see the output you have your cell you have your substrate and you have your product correct you still have your substrate so not 100% of the substrate has been used the cell that is coming out is going to reduce the cell count inside so you can do a recycle in that case that’s the reason in cstr we generally have a recycle so what are the design consideration for a bu reactor the most important for any startup in the world Capital similarly if you want to set up a bi reactor facility or any uh fermentational facility the very first thing that will come into picture would be your initial capital expenditure now out of all these three reactors which one do you think is the cheapest batch because of ease of operation or you can buy as big as you want you can put as much of your mic uh your substrate into that let it run and once it is done open it take your product out right so substrate if you see that’s why I’m saying like if let’s say I come to you and say that okay I need this particular product your choice of reactor will depend on many many things one of the thing is how much money I’m going to give you as your initial Capital right so your initial capital expenditure will Define the type of reactor that you’re going to choose the ease of operation would be the second most important parameter less downtime now what is your downtime what is downtime so you have a reactor all the reactions are done so let’s say it took uh you started it now it took three or four hour 4 hours for the whole process to end after 4 hours you removed you open it you remove your mask cell mask you clean it it takes you 2 hours to make it ready for the next batch the down time downtime is 2 hours right run time 4 hours okay okay so we’ll be using these terms like downtime the T and the runtime or the the batch time would be your 4 hours downtime would be your 2 hours so TB would Define your batch time TD would be defining your downtime so using these parameters you will be able to understand the efficiency of your process that you’re working with or even the the productivity you can Define productivity not just on the terms of how much cell Mass you can produce or how much product you can produce you are also going to look at the total like if you’re if you’re running your reactor every day for 365 days of the year with a specific downtime in between your productivity will depend on how many times you have ran it how much of the downtime you have had in between because that will Define your total time so total time is batch time plus TD simply so how if I tell you like you are able to run two batches a day if you’re running your system for 365 days how many batches did you run 365 into 2 and that will give you the total mass you would have accumulated right over the year or what your yield have been over the year maintenance ease of Maintenance not just maintenance ease of maintenance is also a very very important parameter when you’re trying to choose a bi reactor or even design a bi reactor skill requirement there was a question I remember so skill level that is required to run a bio reactor depending upon the choice of bi reactor will differ if you add too many complexities you need somebody who’s highly skilled right if you have less complexities you can run it without any skill give me one very good example of a batch reactor not a con tank reactor or a or let’s say any of the reactors which have been operated by least skilled people a product that was developed by least skilled people they don’t have to have a degree in engineering come on you do that every day at home your mom does that yogurt good another in North America it would be moonshine have you heard about moonshine uh illegal liquor okay which you can do brewing in a jungle you don’t need a highly skilled engineer to be in a jungle hiding from the police brewing your fermentable alcohol that’s your moonshine in in north at one point of time it used to be illegal to actually brew moonshine and uh people were still doing it so that’s a very good example you don’t need to have skill you need to understand how the process works right skill is if you can operated technical skill is a different thing so when you start adding complexities where you have to estimate how much of dissolved oxygen is there are you able to maintain it you have to do some calculations yes technical skill is required at that time that might change the type of reactor or the choice of reactor for you if your choice is to make sure that a specific skilled level is utilized or employed for a process the other would be your Control Systems the type of controls that you would like to put if if if you only require a basic control that means temperature what is happening inside or you need your temperature you need your pH you need to dissolve oxygen you need to know your cell uh concentration you you you need to add all of those controls to design the B reactor then you have your quality of the culture the design consideration will require the quality of culture now quality of culture matters a lot what do I mean by the culture so if you remember when we were discussing about the process to reach the reactor stage we have to grow the cells in the lab so we use the flasks we grow in them in that but then we are what what are we trying to do we are trying to grow the culture or the cells in the nut nutrient Rich environment right so there so that their metabolic Machinery within the cell has aligned to that nutrient but that nutrient has to be the similar to the nutrients that they going to get in the reactor might not be in the same concentration but they will be getting in the reactor so that small scale pirate scale large scale that’s how it goes so you have to have that chain so you develop the culture you build the culture then you pass on the culture inside correct now that Machinery the metabolic Machinery which is within the cell that will will keep on that will change if you change the carbon sources so let’s say if I have given a carbon Source One to the to the cell culture in the lab and in the fermentor I’m giving it a carbon Source too what will happen will my cells grow yes or no if that carbon Source can be used by the cells it might grow if that carbon source is not to be used by my cells they will not grow they will die the quality of culture will also make a lot of uh impact because if you have an older culture again an example would be your CD and yogurts at home if you use an older culture you might not get a proper set card if you are using a new culture very new culture where you don’t have enough microbes you might not get a proper set card but you have to have the appropriate Optimum culture to have to grow in the fermented system right or in the fermentation process when do you reach it how do you reach it it has to be done outside the fermentation process okay now the classifications of bioreactors you have your solid state bioreactors the cultivations in the absence of free water of uh pre-treatment of the substrate and difficult to control process parameters now solid state sorry solid state by reactors the cultivation is in the absence of free water pre-treatment of of substrate and is required and difficult to control process parameters are involved in this it’s not as simpler as uh regular submerged by reactors like a batch process or a Fed batch or a control tank reactor application of these are mostly for antibiotics food additives biocontrol agents and bio Remediation in my research group we have used it for food additives uh specifically to get natural pigments natural pigments would be your natural colors from the food waste product so we were using onion peels we have used uh carrot in North America you get uh so you here you have your carrots with the top then you have your leaves right excuse my drawing when you go to the market you can buy the whole carrot here there they will cut this part and this part and what you get is in between and bunch of that so this goes as a waste with the leaf that we call it the crown and the tip the crown and tip is thrown away so my research group we did uh we mash it we make a pulp out of it put it in a solate reactor run it just to see if we are able to extract the carotenoid whatever is present in it now keratinoid is a natural pigment that will give you the natural orange color right now other classifications of bioreactors are immobilized cell bioreactors and the fluidized bed bioreactors we did discuss about the fluidized bi reactors a little bit uh immobilized cells bi reactors are where you reutilization of cells is required so your cells are immobilized into a different chamber or you can say a flow cells or flow yeah a flow cell and then you have your substrate being pumped into that flow cell and as it moves through the chamber your cells are interacting with the the substrate your product is formed it is pumped back and the and the and the substrate whatever conversion has taken place is pumped back so it reduces the contact time it increases the volumetric productivity uh the fluidize bed reactors you have your heat and mass transfer is efficient in this case because everything is fluidized so the transfer of temperature the transport of U or the mass movement would be appropriate effective mixing between liquid solids and gaseous phases and it has a very low Shear rate suitable for suitable for plant cells and mamal cells so depending upon the type of host so let’s say if you’re going to use Mamon cells as a host to grow something you would like to go for a fluidized bed by reactor okay now comes the main aspect of your bioreactor design and Analysis so what are uh couple of parameters that we have to discuss here sorry so for the bi reactor design analysis till now we have talked about batch reactor fed batch reactor continuous St tank reactor fluidized bed reactor imiz imized bed reactor there’s another type of bioreactor have you uh heard of this uh plug flow reactors you know what a plug flow reactor is those who know it uh please help me out okay so in the chamber do you have the cells immobilized or what do you have in the chamber because that’s a plug flow reactor right so you have pass in my understanding it is you’re passing the substrate as a plug so it is moving from one side to the other side it will get converted or the surate will get consumed and will go away right the product will be formed and that can come out so this particular chamber in a plug flow reactor does that have your immobilized cells yes or no in this particular design that I have made yes so in the plug flow reactor that is one way of uh passing it it’s a it’s a really nice design but I to be honest I don’t remember what exactly we use it for I forgot Dr Bala without yes there’s no axal missing mixing exal mixing so in the axis there is no mixing it’s moving from one direction to the other direction right okay so that’s one other uh so plug flow reactors that’s another type of reactor which is there fiz bed we have done imol s by reactors we have done okay so bi reactor design analysis so what size of reactor type of reactor or method of operations are best for a given product formation that’s the very first question that you’re going to ask yourself when you’re trying to choose the type of bi reactor for your own process now it depends it very much depends uh for your own project so not project for your own case studies depending upon the type of product that I have asked you to make you have to choose the right by reactor but that choice will depend on the host that you have chosen correct it will also depend on whether your product which is made is extracellular or intracellular what else would be there the host the product you need Iration or you don’t need Iration do you need mixing continuous mixing what else would be there somebody gave the answer environmental conditions okay process parameters what else would there will the amount of product that you want to develop be a condition that should be the primary condition the productivity right yes if if if you’re having difficulty go back to this particular slide ease of operation less downtime product variation variability should be less productivity or yield is also a very important parameter in choosing the right reactor for your process maintenance is another thing the skill requirements I’m not going don’t consider that for your own case studies that is not that won’t be necessary Control Systems yes would be very very important the type of feed stock that you’re going to use we’ll also Define now how do you define the performance at the very beginning of our lecture we we talked about from the monitary perspective and the time perspective right if you have to say if if a particular process is efficient enough I say how quickly I was able to get my product or how much product I was able to get to make the money out of it when you’re looking it from the reactor perspective you’ll be looking at the reaction time so how much time it takes for the conversion of the substrate into the product so it is a measure of processing rate in a batch reactor and so whenever we are working with a batch reactor the performance measurement is based on the reaction time when we are working with let’s say a flow reactor uh like a cstr continuous third tank reactor we are looking at space time and space velocity so space time and space velocity so space time is the time required to process one reactor volume of feed and the space velocity is the number of reactor volume treated in unit time to define the performance of a flow reactors so both space time and space velocity are used to define the performance of a flow reactor reaction time is only used to define the performance of a batch reactor before we go into the next set of slides which would be later I just wanted to go back uh on a few slides and have a bit of of a discussion with respect to your case studies that was the intent now when we are looking at your case studies now case study one was monoline please correct me if the spelling is correct or not and the case study two was Alpha mileage for monoline and Alpha mileage for monoline it’s a it’s a plant protein it’s a protein as a product now what will impact the quality of the protein or the product in your fermentation system your pH will impact it the temperature will impact so the process parameters right so you have to be very careful in terms of what reactor you’ll choose depending upon what will happen to my product at the very end so you want where you have maintained the temperature okay pH will change based on if the product is going to add to the medium if my product is acidic or basic that is going to change the medium pH the protein if that is extracellular is it going to change the pH of the medium guess yes or no so when you add protein to a media will the pH of the media change or any like say if you add protein in the water the the water PH changes you have your protein shakes right if you go to the gym does the pH of your protein shakes change when you mix water in the in the powder protein so let’s say it doesn’t let’s say it doesn’t I’m not agreeing with this or disagreeing with it just for the sake of this conversation I’m saying let’s say it doesn’t change the pH of your medium the only parameter that remains would be temperature right if the temperature is is also Optimum your interest is that you get maximum amount of protein generated right then you can decide what type of bioact would be be careful in that in case stud 2 Alpha milees that’s an enzyme again a protein whether it is produced extracellularly or intracellularly depending on the host that you choose depending on the process that you choose will Define the type of reactor you are going to use all so you have to be very very careful in uh in choosing the right reactor design for these type of processes the second part of our uh presentation is pretty long uh the FED batch and the batch reactor and this part was not too long so I would like to end the session here for this one and we’ll meet again at 2 to we start the second session both material huh e e good evening I hope you had a nice lunch okay uh there are a couple of things that before we start the presentation or like before we start the discussion on the design of the batch and the FED batch reactor I have to clarify a mistake that I made in the previous session when we were talking about uh oh oh the plug flow reactor I stated that the cells are immobilized and we are moving the the substrate that’s wrong we are actually sending the cell and the substrate as a plug so we sell we send like specific concentration of the cell and the substrate through the reactor so it gets completely consumed and by the time it comes out it is like you have the whole cell mass and then again you send the second plug the third plug it’s a continuous plugging of that it becomes like a continuous third tank reactor where you have the continuous growth in it right okay so now that I have fixed that mistake I can start so design of the batch and the FED batch by reactors so we were discussing about the design analysis so the idea is whenever you’re trying to develop a bi reactor or whenever you’re trying to develop a particular process which is going to use a bi reactor there’s couple of questions that you have to answer one of the question would be the size of the reactor the type of the reactor and the method of operation that you’re going to choose and which of those reactors and the method are better for your product formation so keeping in mind with respect to our case studies 1 and two you can actually you’re actually going to go through this exercise yourself but to give you a bit more information of how we actually design these reactors how do we understand that this reactor is better for our product or that reactor is better for our product we’ll get into the details of it now we have also discussed about the the performance measures so we when we are looking at the reaction time that is what is used for the batch reactors if it is the space time the space velocity we looking at The Continuous Flow reactor so that would be your continuous third tank reactors so batch reactor design the there has to be why we are doing it right so when we are starting the starting question for a batch reactor design would be like for a given reaction kinetics and the desired substrate conversion what should be the volume of the reactor to meet the product ction Target now for a batch reactor now if I have to give you the most lame in answer let’s say if you have to cook rice for yourself how many glasses of rice will you put in the pressure cooker and if you let’s say you have a party of four or five coming to your house how many glasses of rice will you put into the pressure cooker will a 2 L pressure cooker be good enough for you whether a 5 L pressure cooker would be good enough for you that sort of question is what we are trying to ask okay so what would be the size of the reactor if we want a specific desired level of product formation or the cell Mass concentration what should be the size of the volume of the reactor that we should be using as part of the batch reactor the other part would be to calculate the productivity of the given reactor volume and the process kinetics and the conversions so these are the two questions that we would like to answer as part of our batch reactor design the other how will we do that so the way we will go forward with that would be that we have to develop an equation between the cell Mass generation which is going to be denoted as X the product that we are generating would be p and the substate that we are consuming as an S so we have to find the relationship between the cell Mass the product and the substrate so there is a relationship between the cell mass and the substrate there has to be relationship between the cell mass and the product generation sometimes if you have too much of substrate that is not good for your cell Mass too less of substrate is also not good for your cell Mass if there is a substrate inhibition what would be the situation if there is a product inhibition what is the situation so we’ll be looking at all those type of equations or relationships in terms of the batch reactor design now these equations are used to predict the batch time for a desired conversion so once we have understood the relationship between the parameters the cell the product and the substrate we can use that to understand how much time will it take to get the specific product or the specific cell concentration using the specific amount of substrate a given volume of the reactor and we will also be able to estimate the volumetric productivity of the system through our bat reactor design now the growth kinetics the growth kinetics or when we are talking about the cell growth if you remember in the very first uh conversation that we had on the cellular agriculture we did talk about the sigmoid curve right the cell has a growth phase sorry lag phase the log phase and the stationary phase and then you also have a death phase even ually right so that is basically your cell concentration x with respect to the time you’re looking at how the cell mass is growing now how do you actually quantify this cell concentration so there are two methods you have the direct methods in uh in which you’re looking at no suspended solids or interference compounds and uh then there is a preferred method which is actually your dry weight uh value so if you remember when you’re doing experimentations as part of your molecular sorry microbiology course if you’re growing a cell in a media in a Shaker flask you’ll be continuously taking out at least an mL of the media and checking its turbidity and that is what you’re going to plot to check your growth curve right so that is what we do the optical density so you can take the dry weight and optical density which is uh estimated between 600 nanom to 700 nanom or you can use the cell number density or you can estimate the cell number density using uh hemocytometer or a plate count or a cter counter so using these techniques you can actually estimate how much of the cell has grown in your medium now the indirect methods are preferred when the direct methods are inapplicable that would be specifically for the solid state mold fermentation so solid state fermentation technique is widely used when you’re trying to grow melium or fungus for your own product as a product so solid state fermentation uh system is used so we basically used the indirect methods for that so the cell Mass can be determined indirectly by measurement of the protein or the DNA or the ATP or or the nadh now if you’re looking at the ATP and nadh these are products of the metabolic pathways right either gra cycle or TCA cycle you do get these produced so if you’re able to if you’re aware of how much of ATP would be generated by the biomass or by a given biomass you can estimate by estimating the Total ATP amount so for example the the the example that is given to you is like assume that 1 mgram of ATP per gram dry weight of bacterial cell is produced so if you have 100 Mig of ATP per liter then you can estimate your cell Mass concentration to be 100 G of dry weight cells per liter so you’re estimating it indirectly how much of the cell mass is there by estimating a product that has been generated out of the cell or within the cell as part of of its metabolic pathway or even if the protein is being produced how much protein is being produced per cell if you know that then you can go back and estimate how much your cell concentration would be so cell so you have the direct methods so direct method is the terity method that’s the preferred method the indirect method would be when we are looking at the DNA the ATP NL and the nadh now with respect to the design and operation of the fermentation system the cell growth kinetics plays a very important role and understanding the cell growth kinetic is also very very important so cell growth kinetics is the rate of cell growth and how it is affected by the various chemical and the physical conditions now when we are talking about the chemical and the physical conditions the physical conditions would be if you can give me an example of physical condition use the mic if you can if you can use the mic that would be really great like this pH and these environmental conditions the chemical would be that okay okay physical what would be the physical see the change in temperature change in PH will affect your growth kinetics for sure right so that is where we are looking at most of the time so when we are looking at the cell concentration with the the change in the cell concentration with respect to the temperature and the pH my question to you was like if when we are talking about various chemicals and the physical conditions what would be one of the physical conditions that would be the temperature chemical conditions pH we can take that way right now to when we are having the growth kinetics as we said like the growth curve looks more or less like this you have your death phase at the very end you have your lag phase this is your log or the exponential phase and this is your stationary phase there has to be a mathematical equation that can actually Define this relationship right with respect to time the concent change in concentration of the cells or the X with respect to time there has to be something now how do you accurately model this mathematically model the cell growth it is actually very very difficult to do that because the growth is dependent on various biochemical reactions and transport phenomenas so let’s say if you mixing is not proper and it is not able to get enough oxygen or the nutrients the cell growth will vary at different parts of the reactor if it is a batch reactor it is changing at very different parts of the reactor so mathematically you have to assume that there is a homogeneity the completely homogeneous environment is maintained there is no difference the nutrient content on the top and the bottom so you have to assume a lot of it to be able to mathematically design an equation that can Define your growth kinetics a hetrogeneous mixture of young and old cells are present at all times if you have this type of scenario your growth kinetics cannot be modeled mathematically because younger ones will have a different model the older ones will are already at the stationary or the death phase it changes because you have a mix of it so the mathematical models that are there which can actually explain cell growth fall under the unstructured and distributed empirical models now there are certain assumptions that have been made for these empirical models and we did discuss about this assumptions in the previous slide so assumptions concerning cell components and the population that as the cell is increasing the cell components are also increasing at the same time the cell kinetic equations derived from these models are used for the analysis and design of Ideal fermentors and that because whenever we work on the design of uh bi reactors or design of fermentor systems whether we are going to do the B uh the batch or the FED batch we are always going to design for an ideal batch reactor or or an ideal fed batch reactor or even an ideal cstr if you go up to there so the assumptions are the cells represented by a single component such as the cell weight or the cell number assuming balanced growth that means the cell weight and the cell number is increasing at the same rate as its components the second assumption is the cell suspension is homogeneous uniformly distributed okay the nutrients have been uniformly distributed if the oxygen is being added to the to the bioreactor it is uniformly distributed so all the parameters that are required for the cell to grow are uniformly distributed but when we are only considering the cell so the cell are homogeneously distributed only one medium component is limiting the reaction rate other components are in excess now when we talk about the limiting component for a cell growth what would they be what does a cell require to grow just give me two on in the mic in the mic that would be great sir carbon and nitrogen Source those are your nutrients right so nutrient or the the substrate that is coming in is one yes sir what is the next one what can inhibit a cell growth what can change the cell growth oxygen oxygen right so you have your nutrient concentration and the oxygen concentration so if you change either of it you will be varying the way the cell is going to behave or the cell growth is going to behave in the fermentation system in this case we are assuming all of the other things are constant only one is changing either we are changing the substate or we are changing the oxygen majority time s we are changing the substrate the substrate is your limiting factor if it has to be the concentration of the substrate that is going to be added to the reactor would be your limiting factor other than that nothing else changes because we have defined because when I said that homogeneous nutrient the homogeneous distribution of the cell homogeneous distribution of the nutrient homogeneous distribution of the oxygen for the cell growth I’m only changing the nutrients rest all the Remains the Same so monod model is one of those empirical models which is commonly used to define your cell growth now in this particular case you have mu which is your specific growth rate so your me is equal to Mu Max s/ s + KS now this is your monod saturation constant this is your limiting factor because we have to make that Assumption of the limiting factor right so this is your limiting factor in this case so monod’s model the s/ ks + S is your limiting factor now how do you define your mu your specific growth rate DX by DT would be the change in the cell concentration with respect to time right if you do normalize it with respect to the cell concentration X that is what is going going to give you your mu the specific so mass of cell produced divided by the original mass of cell into time so if you rewrite this equation that is what has been done in the last line here so DX by DT becomes mux or mux X is your initial cell concentration and we know that mu is mu Max s/ KS + S you just substitute that so this is the equation that you’ll get so further increase in the nutrient concentration mu after it reaches Max does not affect the con uh does not affect the MU so what it means is as you increase the s or S tends to go to Infinity just for now I’m just in inre keep on increasing the S the cell concentration will increase and it will become flatten out this is where your mu Max is and if you remember your micless mum constant from your enzyme kinetics when we are doing that so the half of your enzymes the same thing is used here so the half of mu Max by 2 is your KS the constant the monard saturation constant okay clear till now any questions these are the basics if you have already done that I’m sorry I’m going to repeat it anyway now this particular graph here is representing your growth kinetics so you have your lack phase you have your acceleration phase the growth phase and the decline that goes into your stationary and then you have your death phase just a question for you when the cell is in its lag phase what does that mean use the mic please if you have the mic please answer in that try to it’s on on it’s try to adjust to that environment it is trying to adjust to the environment adjust the envir why is it trying to adjust to the environment it has to utilize the carbon Source it will take some time but if I remember correctly when we were discussing about the fermentation system so we have a seed fermentor where we have grown the biomass I have acclimatized it to the nutrients that are going to be used in the larger biomass will it still require that lag phase we can reduce the lag phase timing sir if you’re using a seed culture culture we can reduce lack phase so if you use a seed culture many of times this particular lack phase will not even exist so when you don’t use it it is obvious because the cell is growing still cell is still growing it’s it’s not doubling it’s just growing in volume okay the cell is still growing it’s not doubling it’s not multiplying what it is doing is it is changing the internal Machinery to get used to the nutrients and the environment that you have put it into once it get used to that it knows now I’m ready let’s double that’s where your acceleration phase starts and then gets into your exponential phase of cell growth once it is in the exponential uh phase of cell growth it will keep remain it will remain in the exponential phase of cell growth if you continuously provide it with substrate am I right with this statement if I continue to provide substrate will the cell continue to be in its exponential growth phase not I’m not saying a cell I’m talking about the the whole reactor if I if I continuously keep on adding the subate can I maintain the exponential phase for as long as I want no sir no so you you won’t be able to maintain the growth phase at all or the exponential phase the loog phase okay when will the cell get into the stationary phase use the mic please when will the cell get into the stationary phase uh substrate limitation or the the cell will produce tox toxic components okay let’s assume the cell is not producing any toxic components okay and there is no substate limitation okay will the cell reach its stationary phase like do sell have a biological clock like humans they have a life cycle like okay I’m only going to be alive for 1 hour or two hours or they will continue to keep on growing and multiply you’re talking about bacterias will the cell biomass keep on increasing that’s what my con my question is I’m not asking you anything else will my cell concentration be in an exponential phase or continue to grow if I continue to provide it with substrate in a batch reactor that’s not the situation right in a batch reactor you have given it enough substrate you have given the seed the substrate grows done you let it grow once the substrate is completely consumed it has been in the stationary phase like like it has reached the max that it can be in that mu Max stage and once it has completely consumed your substrate what will happen started to then your decline uh your death phase will start but that before the death phase the cell will still catabolize itself to grow it will kill other cells to to get the component for it to grow we will be reading we will be we will learning more about that later but I’m just remember this question that I asked you if you continue to provide the substate will the cell will continue to grow or not just remember this question okay will you will be able to answer it later on now let’s get into the monod equation so there are different uh so monod equation is with respect to your cell growth right cell kinetics there are different versions of monod equation that have been exist I think this is your uh long model this is to represent the substrate inhibition if the substrate is the one which is inhibiting the cell growth itself how do you represent that you’ll be representing it with this equation it’s a it’s a upgraded version of your monard model and this is the only part which has been added because what is your mual to Mu Max ss+ s right that’s what your monot model is if you add this 1 minus s – s m to the power a you adding the substrate inhibition aspect so this is your inhibition from the substrate side now when the substate inhibition takes place so let’s say if I have an equation with mu and subrate so there is let’s let’s let’s make a graph so when we are talking about inhibition there are two ways the the MU will behave with respect to the substate concentration either it will follow an astoic curve or it will follow a straight line a declining straight line or with a negative slope so when you’re looking at this declining straight line with a negative slope the location where it has intersected the substraight line the xais that is your SM so what it means is luong model is valid if you are provided with the concentration of the substrate that is actually going to inhibit your growth your mu so if you’re aware of the concentration of the substrate at which my growth will get inhibited you follow the luong model if you are not aware of what my substrate concentration is going to be at which the inhibition will take place that means your mu will become zero you don’t use the Mong model you use the second one the relationship the asymptotic Rel relationship between mu and S is represented by the equation two if this is your equation one that one is only valid if you are aware or if you are given with the value of the substate concentration that will inhibit your growth or your mu will become zero now if multiple substrates are present an upgraded version of the same model would be used z b now if you are looking at product inhibition so I have substrate inhibition sometimes if you have growth of product product might also inhibit the cell growth right can you give me an example to that ethanol sir if you have more ethanol generated it it will inhibit the cell growth eventually right so if if the product is the one which is going to inhibit I’m going to ask you a simple question which of these if I’m looking at mu and the P which of these will follow the negative slope or the asymptotic behavior one or two so which one will follow the negative slope so you know the concentration of your product at which your inhibition will take place so your number two is a straight line and your number one is going to give you the asymptotic behavior same equations similar equations for the subset and the product these are the upgraded versions of monod kinetics monod’s model the monot model is used to define your growth kinetics if you have inovations associated with it you have to use the monot model but a different upgraded version of it and that is what they did any questions now let’s come back to our discussion on the different uh phases of the growth of in the batch culture so you had your lag phase so we did discuss that the cell is going through the machinary changes right but it will increase in the volume but it’s not going to increase in number in the acceleration phase and growth phase it’s going to increase in the in the number it’s going to multiply once it has reached the decline of the stationary phase that’s the time when the relationship has become the that it is about to finish off all the subrate that is available right the balance has been reached and once all the substrates are gone what happens death and that is where I did state that it might start eating itself right not cannibalism catabolism cell catabolism starts to take place or endogenous uh I think I forgot I think I have it that in the slid so we’ll go there so this is your uh cell growth kinetics we did discuss a bit about your lags the growth and the stationary phase now do cells produce products as they’re growing so in their growth phase what sort of product will a cell produce primary metaboli secondary metabolize comes in the stationary phase your antibiotics vitamins minerals they come out in stationary phase in the growth phase is mostly the proteins and anything that is required for its own growth right so anything which is within the cellular structure of the of the biomass like the cell so lag phase is a period of adaptation we are just going to repeat a little bit for the cells to their new environment thank you for answering that question at that time so new enzymes are synthesized a slight increase in cell mass and volume but no increase in the cell number there is a prolong it can be prolonged you can prolong your lack phase if you have put less inoculum you can do that you can also prolong your lack phase if you have a poor inoculum that means either you have like a mix of uh dead cells with your VI like viable cells it’s like it’s an old culture if you take that the age of inoculum is older then you’re going to prolong your lack phas or your medium in which you have put your seed culture is not nutrient enough so it is going to remain in the lack phase for a longer period of time so if the medium contains more than one or more carbon sources you will be uh observing multiple lag phases and that is called call us dioic growth now what happens in that we did discuss about it so let’s say let’s say if your in the recombinant DNA technology when we are talking about the if you remember for one of the examples there were two plasmids that were added into the cell into into the into the bacterial cell I don’t remember exactly which example was that if I I think it was P so it was being grown in the using the cell there were two different plasmids let’s say there were two different plasmids now one plasmid happily works or will allow will make the modifications to the cell in such a way that you can use one carbon Source the second one requires a different carbon Source or the there are two different carbon sources that are present in the cell forget about the plasma for a moment so if there are two different carbon sources which one will the cell choose first I asked that question right C1 and C2 it will choose the one that it likes the most because everybody wants to be in their own comfort zone cell also wants to be in its own comfort zone so it’s going to choose the one which it likes the most so you will have a growth with a like small lag you’ll have the growth once it has completely consumed that particular carbon Source now it has to rearrange its metabolic pathways to start consuming the second carbon source which it might not like but it has to eat it’s like when you go to the hostel you might not like the food but you have to eat it right for survival so that’s exactly what happens so you have that is called your dioic growth so when you’re using multiple uh carbon sources it will continue to use the carbon source that it likes the most then the second one then the third one if you keep on adding you can keep on having that growth multiple lack phases the exponential growth in this particular phase the cell has adjusted to their new environment and it will start multiplying rapidly exponentially okay so it does a balanced growth all components of the cell grow at the same time and the growth rate is independent of nutrient concentration as the nutrient are in excess the growth rate is independent of the nutrient concentration for the exponential phase because the nutrient present is in excess so I will ask my question again what if I maintain my nutrient concentration in excess yes will my cell remain in the exponential growth I’m not asking you to answer right now it might be a trick question so think wisely whenever you get the idea to answer this think wisely if I maintain that excessive nutrient concentration will my cell remain in the exponential growth phase now before we get into the design equations for the batch reactor and the FED batch reactor we have to go through certain terminologies or we have to understand certain terminologies which will be used more or less every time we try to solve so in our conversation on the cell biomass and when we are looking at the micro microbial growth we’ll be using a terminology called a CX which is your cell concentration is your dry cell weight per unit volume your dcx by DT is your change in your cell concentration with respect to time so when we try to do if you remember uh mass balance right in minus out plus generation minus consumption is equal to accumulation your dcx by DT is your accumulation term in a batch reactor do you have an in everything is already inside right there is no Inlet there’s no Outlet is there any consumption consumption of what but am I balancing substrate or am I balancing the cell am I consuming the cell so the only thing that you will have is generation right so let’s say that I’ll give as RX but it is a volumetric generation volumetric accumulation because the V remains constant got the idea this is actually Your Design equation for your batch reactor I have given you way in advance but I’m just trying to explain how we are going to use these terminologies later on okay so your Rx is your growth rate of the cell biomass so what is the difference between dcx by DT and RX dcx by DT is a change in the cell concentration RX is your growth rate the difference between these two is rx is 1xx dcx by DT you have to have that term of X because the rate of growth so it will appear that both the terms one like the two and the three are the same but the two may include the effect of input and output flow rates and the cell cycle because you might do a cell cycle it might keep on increasing it now these the these terminologies can be used for batch reactor it can be used for fed batch reactor it can be used for CSR these are not specific to batch only but these are the terminologies that are basically used when we are going to go forward in our conversation here three is your actual growth rate of the cell three which is your Rx is your actual growth rate of the cell two is only equal to three for the batch operations 2 is only equal to three for your batch operations now the other terminology would be that growth rates based on cell number and cell weight can be assumed assumed to be equal in exponential growth phases with a balanced growth assumption that all the components are also growing at the same time and the microbial growth the product formation and the substrate utilization rates are usually expressed in the form of specific rates so the growth would be represented as Mu which is specific growth rate uh the substrate will also be represented Sim similarly in a specific we’ll have the product you will see QP for the product or the specific uh growth of the product we are always going to represent it in terms of the specific rate now specific rate are always normalized with respect to the initial concentration so that X has to always be there for specific growth so what was the equation for Mu that’s your specific growth the change in concentration with respect to the initial concentration multiplied by time there’s another terminology which is your division rate now we all understand so if let’s say a particular cell is going to divide it into two at a time right so if let’s say your cell c not CN not is your cells dividing n times in time T the total number of cells CN After Time T would be so your average division rate Delta is your n / T now this is the equation that comes with from the average division rate now if if you keep on rearranging the previous equations that we have been looking at what you will end up with is this this is the most important equation in this whole list of equations here so your RN or your Rx was DX by DT right or your dcn in this case so dcn by DT and they have done a lawn of it and the law of the N values and they have just rearranged it and put it back into the equation for Mu so the division rate is constant in exponential phase while growth rate is not what it means is as you are in your how do I go back so in this growth phase the division rate is constant okay growth rate is not constant the slope of this is your constant n the other terminology that we are going to use would be your doubling time so your DX by DT is given as mux or mu is 1xx DX by DT right so this is what the equation is where your mu is your specific growth rate X is your concentration G per liter time is a time in hours as you rearranging it so if you make it DX by X mu DT and if I integrate it I’ll be left with Mt like 0 to T this would be X to X this will become l x by X equ to Mt right that is what they are doing this equation you have your doubling time right so when your X becomes 2 time of X that is where your T becomes TD so the equation for the TD is long 2 by mu so your TD your doubling time is basically a reciprocal of division rate this a reciprocal of your division rate so growth rate and the division rate defined by the cell numbers are are different entities the division rate is constant during the exponential period while growth is not this is the most important concept that you have to take into account division rate is constant during the exponential period while the growth is not now exponential growth phase the balance cell the of the cell mass in the culture gives is given as excuse me so the balance of the cell mass in the batch culture gives is the DX by D DX by DT is mux X is X at time tal to zero or when it is starting and the integration of this is given as your DX by X Mt right sorry mu DT sorry my mistake mu DT 0 to t x to X so lwn X by X KN is become mu t now if you put the equation of x x is e to^ mu T if I give you this equation you know let’s say if I give you the initial concentration that came into the batch reactor and I give you the time of the total batch or the batch time you would be able to use this equation given that I have provided you a specific growth rate if I provide you all of those parameters you’ll be able to tell me what the cell Mass concentration would be at the end of the time t with the given specific growth rate you will see that we’ll be using these equation to solve a few questions later on okay so this particular equation is an important equation in terms of your batch growth kinetics and batch operations this is what we are looking at mostly in the exponential phase right the slope of this would be constant this is a constant slope so the MU remains constant in this phase in the exponential phase it remains constant now stationary and the death phase exhaustion of the nutrients that means your s has been consumed completely and the buildup of the waste and the secondary metabolic uh metabolic products inhibits the growth the cells may have Active Metabolism to produce secondary metabolites that’s where in the stationary phase it happens endogenous metabolism occurs by catabolizing cellular reserves for new building blocks and energy produc proding monomer to for the maintenance energy so that means the old cells or the dying cells will be providing the materials for maintenance of whatever cells are remaining or that are still there okay the dying cells or the dead cells or the ended cells are the ones which are providing the maintenance materials the cell liis may occur and the viable cell mass will drop in the stationary and the death phase so the growth kinetics with respect to your stationary phase is given with instead of mu we have this minus KD this minus KD is the rate constant for endogenous metabolism because now the growth is endogenous in nature to catabolism we looking at KD rather than mu which is your specific growth rate it is related to specific growth rate as Mu net because you have your mu and then you have your KD so total mu net would be mu minus KD or sorry mu into minus KD where your mu is your gross specific growth rate so endogenous metabolism is the cell catabolizes cellular reserves for new building blocks and for energy producing monomers which are used for many maintenance okay it is used for maintenance now let’s get into other uh some of the terminologies which are your yield coefficients so yield coefficients are always represented as with Y so it can be YX by S this will represent the yield of X with respect to S so that means the cell with respect to substrate you will have y p by S production of product with respect to substrate and Y x/ O2 with with respect to how much O2 is consumed now y x by S simple equation would be x – x ided by S – s s is your initial subset concentration and S is your final subet con concentration X notot is your initial cell concentration X is your final cell concentration so the ratio of those two will provide you your yield now majority of the slides that I’m using for your batch analysis these were taken from uh an nptl course I I remember uh Dr Smita sasta from I Madras because when I saw that same presentation I teach the same course back in Canada it was pretty much the same thing that I wanted to teach so we used I used more or less her slides or her Concepts but I have added my own flavors to it the way I explain that would be it it reduces workload but I would like to acknowledge her and thank you for providing these slides okay so yield is clear how we write it the notations of it we’ll get into how the equation works out you will be seeing how we’ll be rearranging the equations so if you have to have X if you know the yield let’s say if you’re provided with the yield you have your YX by S right multiplied by S not by S Plus X so let’s say if I give you the initial cell concentration I give you what the yield of the cell biomass is and what was the substrate concentration before and what remained after so let’s say I’m asking you what would be the cell concentration after 70% of your substrate has been used if the substrate that was being put was 10 mg or 10 G per liter or this much of the subrate was added you would be able to use the same rearranged equation to estimate the amount of X okay now these are for your batch process only for batch not fed batch batch batch growth kinetics for most bacteria and the yeast the yield YX by S for glucose is ranges between 0.4 and 0.6 this is your in your Schuler and Ki textbook okay which is like uh the Bible for bioprocessing similarly YX by O2 would be 0.9 to 1.4 G per G O2 so how much cell is produced by how much oxygen is is being consumed so during the batch growth the measured yields are apparent due to endogenous metabolism occurring that is the KD is greater than zero so let’s say what ha what what it means is your cell grew reached the stationary phase right in the stationary phase we did had this conversation that the cell will maintain by killing other cells or other cells will lies and whatever content of that cell came out can be used by the other cells to keep themselves alive you’re getting my point right that if that is higher that means your KD instead of that mu if the KD term is higher or greater than zero the yield that you’re getting at the very end of the batch reactor that means I have done everything so let’s say if this is my reactor I put up everything I was supposed to open it uh after one one hour I got delayed by 1 hour let’s say by 5 minutes and I open it and I took out everything my yield will not be the same you getting my point my apparent the actual yield that I will get is different than my theoretical yield that I would have calculated okay so my Yi yield varies depending upon if my endogenous metabolism took place because some of my cells are gone for the maintenance of whatever remained because I I was delayed by let’s say 5 minutes that’s the best lame and way of understanding it because it has finished all the substrates now the cells are like okay we are done take us out I didn’t they kept on knocking I didn’t after third minutes they’re like dude we have to survive let’s kill people people endogenous metabolism takes place my cell concentration is going to go down a little bit right my yield will reduce little bit very little but not significantly very little if my KD is way too high it will be a significant inre decrease you got the idea how it work looks like so at the end of the batch fermentation we have apparent growth yield which can change with culture conditions so it is not truly constant now comes the design equation so you remember when we were doing the accumulation input output generation consumption so no consumption because we are balancing the cells there’s a difference between heat energy balance and material balance in material balance you always balance each and every component of a mixture your cell in a suspension is one of the component in a mixture so you’re going to only either balance your cell concentration or your substrate concentration or your product concentration you cannot balance all of them at the same time you can only balance one component at a time so one mass balance equation for one component clear that is the reason why we are only using the cell concentration here because that is what our interest is we have already done this so DX by DT will end up to being uh so V DX by DT becomes V RX RX is mux so r X is your mux so now we know DX by DT is mux now mu using the monot model is Mu Max s s + KS into X right so this is the equation that’s how it came so your monot model came up here for the value of mu in the batch the nutrients are added at the beginning and the product is withdrawn at the very end the cell balance equation in a batch reactor is well we have already sorry there’s two of the same thing my mistake so your DX by DT is your mux okay we have already estimated that we substituted mu to your mux s / k + S sorry S Plus KS you remember this equation YX by S is x – x / s – s so X can be written as y XY s s – s + x so that’s your equation clear you know your mu so we are putting both of these equations down there and then we are integrating it so when you integrate it the equation that you will get is this this is called Your Design equation so it is T mu Max a lwn of x/ x + B lwn of s/ s this is your design equation where your a is KS YX by S divided by x + S YX by S + one similarly your B is given so these are the two equations that are used but this is what is called Your Design equation for the batch reactor problem now we have discussed about the growth kinetics now let’s discuss about the product kinetics now let’s say sorry so your growth Associated products are the products produced simultaneously with growth example are constitutive enzymes now what are these constitutive enzymes are the enzymes that are produced by the cell for their own own growth okay these are the ones which are produced during your exponential growth phase in the non- growth Associated product formation that takes place in the stationary field because there’s no growth taking place is stationary that time your QP now what is your QP specific product formation rate right specific growth rate mu QP is your specific product formation rate I did this I did give you a little bit of a hint on that so let’s say go into this so if your p is your product your DP by DT is a change in product concentration with respect to time so your QP would be 1X X DP by DT now what is your y p byx y p byx is a change in the product concentration with respect to sorry yield of product with respect to the cell concentration so that means change in product or d p over d x I can rewrite your YP by X as DP by DT DX by DT now let’s say this is your equation one we know mu is 1xx d d p by DT this is your equation number two using both your equation 1 and two you’ll get QP sorry is Mu y p by X or 1 by X DP by DT you don’t have to write all of these things it’s just for you to understand how we are looking so there is a specific product formation rate there’s a specific growth rate mu QP is your specific product formation rate so the equation that we have just developed is this for the growth similarly for the non- growth Associated we are going to have the QP which is equal to constant which is beta here and during the non-growth associated product so non- growth Associated phase non- growth Associated product formation would be your secondary metabolites the mixed growth product formation takes place during the growth and the stationary phase and that would be your example of lactic acid fermentation and some of the secondary metabolites that are being produced commercially if you’re are looking at from the commercial perspective we try to be in the mixed growth phase if you’re looking at both now this is how your growth Associated product formation the mixed growth Associated product formation and the non-growth associated product formation looks like the primary metabolites are your growth related example ethanol by sacr Services the secondary metabolites are non- growth related like antibiotics and the pigments so if you’re looking at the natural color being produced you’re looking at it in the non- growth Associated phase if you’re looking at antib IC production it is in the stationary phase again and this is where your mixed growth sorry this is non growth and this is where your mixed growth uh phase takes place performance equations for the batch fermentor again we are just going to go through the equations very quickly these are the equations that we going to use when we going to solve a few questions so your dcx by DT is your Rx or mu CX because RX is mux right we have already done this same thing what we are doing is rearranging the thing so dcx by RX I will have mu DT now if I sorry no I will just have the DT now you integrate it your T KN to t x KN to X or CX to CX you’ll end up with this equation here okay now if you take this equation and let’s say in this case if I plot 1 by RX over CX 1 by RX over CX I’m just looking at this particular equation here so if I take that and I’m plotting this 1 by RX / CX I will get this is where sorry so this is where I have harvested my cell biomass this is the concentration at which I have harvested Ed my cell biomass this is my concentration so this is my CX and this is my CX not the Shaded region under this particular graph is your batch time or the batch growth time is the area under the curve now T not is your starting time so if you have had a lag phase there would be a value for T not if you have not had any lag phase if you had your seed culture and it started growing immediately it will be zero okay so let’s say you have your substrate which is being consumed by the X you get your X and that X is also giving another X so X is basically being uh the Catalyst here so the rate of reaction is slow at the start of the concentration of X as the concentration of X increases the rate of reaction increases so it increases as cell multiply and reaches a maximum rate so as a substrate deplete the toxic products accumulate and decreases to a low value this is what we have already discussed so you have one by RX CX the this shaded area is basically your batch growth time it is useful for comparing the performance of various fermented types so if you’re looking at the batch reactor the fair batch reactor the cstrs the plug flow reactors you can actually develop this equation for that and when you compare how much would be the shaded areas for all of those formentor you would be be able to say this one is better or that one is better these are some final slides and then we get into couple of other parameters you want to take a break we we’ll continue for some time and then we’ll take the break and then we have to get into fed batch okay so performance of the equations for the batch fermented so monod parameter cannot be estimated by series of batch runs as done for micel constant parameters so initial rate of reaction is always zero for cell cultivation unlike enzyme reaction so there’s an extra CX terms because uh when you’re looking at this this is what they’re talking about so when you’re looking at the the cell and when you’re looking at the product the difference this is the CX term which has to have which is always there because because mu is 1 by X DX by DT right so that’s where it will come so that X goes back to the CX is that 1X x 1 by CX on this side so that terms always that term always exists and because of that it can never be zero so it’s like you’ll always get uh if I remember correctly the other way around wait I’m not going to draw the graph because I might make a mistake in there but anyways okay so effect of temperature on the growth kinetics we’ll just skip the slides uh pretty quickly these are some things that we have already discussed so Optimum medium pH temperature oxygen supply differs for various microorganisms so every microorganism will have different requirements for temperature pH and oxygen demand so according to Optimum temperature for the growth can be classified for bacterias if you’re looking at the Cyril the optimum temperature is less than 20° C for misiles it’s anywhere between 20° C and 50° C for thermophiles it has to be greater than 50° C so if you choose a thermophile for your product formation you need to maintain a fermentation temperature of greater than 50° C so above the optimum temperature the growth rate decreases and the thermal depth starts to occur so just like that endogenous catabolism that we are talking about we’ll have thermal death that will take place your mun net will change so the growth rate increases to a maximum with an increase in temperature when it is T Optimum so what you’ll have is if you remember in the morning I did draw this so at particular stage you have your t Optimum temperature your growth will continue to increase once you cross the T Optimum in your temperature profile your growth is gone your cells will start to die so at a higher temperature thermal death rate exceeds growth rate which can cause net decrease in concentration of your viable cells and the equations that can be used is this is for your uh the thermal growth a e arous equations have to be used here so a e to^ e^ a minus RT so when it is e a it is thermal growth if it is Ed it is death that’s a big difference between these two so temperature plays a very important role when you’re looking at batch or any of the fermentation processes Now power formation and the yield coefficients are also affected by temperature as the temperature increases Beyond Optimum value the maintenance requirements that means the coefficients of the culture increases as a result the yield will decrease if you remember we already had the YX by S the apparent yield and the actual theoretical yield so diffusional rate should be considered which might become rate limit step as the bioreaction rate increases with temperature now temperature also changes something uh in the bioreactor What will What will what will the temperature increase due to the let’s say the viscosity of the medium it will change the viscosity of the medium if the viscosity of the medium changes it is also going to change the mass transfer coefficients of how oxygen is going to diffuse how the nutrients are going to diffuse so in most fermentation pH can vary substantially depending on the nature of the nitrogen Source production or utilization of the organic acids and the evolutions or the supply of CO2 by changing the CO2 the pH is also getting affected and increase in PH it will affect the activities of the enzymes and therefore it will affect the growth rate now do which is your dissolved oxygen is an important substrate in anerobic sorry in Aerobic fermentation and may be limiting substate as it is sparingly soluble in water do you remember I’m not sure if you uh in Mass transfer you would have studied something called as Henry’s constant right that deals with dissolving gas into liquid at equilibrium right in a ferment in the in the fermentation system can you change the pressure because changing the pressure will change how much oxy how much gas will get dissolved in the liquid right so we cannot do those type of things in the fermentation process so don’t bring that heat transfer concept here that remains in the heat transfer sorry in the mass transfer okay so at higher cell concentration the rate of oxygen consumption May exceed the rate of oxygen supply leading to oxygen limitation so if the cell concentration is higher then what oxygen demand is if the oxygen demand is higher than the supply then oxygen becomes a limiting factor the specific growth rate in that case varies with respect to the do concentration to the saturation kinetics and below the critical concentration the growth respirator follows first order kinetics with respect to the do concentration and above the critical value the growth rate is independent of the do concentration what it means is what is a zero order reaction and the first order reaction which one is substate dependent and which one is not substate dependent first order is substrate dependent zero order is not dependent independent of it can you see the relationship if your concentration impacts the uh the if the do concentration or dissolve oxygen is impacting your cell concentration is a first order reaction right so below the critical concentration below the critical concentration the growth respirator follows first order kinetics above the critical con ation that you you have enough oxygen the self will happily grow so oxygen transfer from gas bubbles to cells is limited by oxygen transfer through liquid fil surrounding the gas bubbles when we get into the Heat and mass transfer you will see how the oxygen is transported so let’s say if this is your cell Mass like they might be in a clump right so your oxygen is coming out from your oxy like the the Sparger gives the bubble the bubble will give out the oxygen so there is a thin layer that it has to cross then there is a medium through which it has to pass and then there is a layer over a cell Mass where it has to pass and only then it can be consumed by the cell right so it becomes like uh you have mass transfer through multi mediums with different diffusivities so the diffusivity here is different the diffusivity here is different the diffusivity here would be different it’s like a series resistances which will get accumulated so it changes now if the Sparger was working properly there would be gas bubbles around the cell biomass so the the transport might be direct so that will improve the overall oxygen transport so DCL by DT the concentration with respect to change in uh the time is your K C Star by CL this is your oxygen transfer rate and then you have your oxygen uptake rate so which is your q2x is equal to x / y x by O2 this is your yield with respect to O2 so when oxygen transfer is your rate limiting your OTR is equal to your OU which means oxygen transfer rate is equal to your oxygen uptake rate and this is the equation that you will get at the sorry this is the equation that you get at the very end so the growth rate varies linearly with the do concentration under oxygen limitation these are just the conceptual parts that you should be aware of another uh would be your pH so the reduxx potential affects the extent of oxidative reductive uh reactions if the function of the dissolve oxygen the ph and the other is other ion concentration so it’s a function of that so you’re changing if you change the pH if you change the disolve oxygen if you change the ion concentration you’re going to change the detox potential of your system and that will create changes to the uh oxidated reductive reactions so if you CO2 gets uh added to your fermentation system CO2 can be toxic so that will impact your cell growth the presence of ions affects the transport of nutrients across cell and it also impacts the metabolic function and the solubility of dissolved oxygen we are going to take a break now for 15 minutes and then we will get back what do you think or do you want me to continue I can finish it off you want me to continue sure okay so let’s solve this particular question if you want to so what you have here is your single cell protein is produced from methanol using a, M Cub bioreactor the biomass yield from substrate is 0.42 G per gr biomass yield from substrate is 0.42 G per G the ks is 0.7 MGR per liter your mu Max is 0.45 per hour that means you’re given with your mu Max the medium contains 4% weight by volume methanol and a substrate conversion of 98% is desirable in the process now methanol is being used to produce single cell protein the medium contains 4% methanol weight by volume okay understand this difference this this this ratio so for batch mode of operation the initial cell concentration is 0.1 1 G per liter that is your X knot and the downtime between the batches is 5 hours your t d is given you need to calculate the annual biomass production you also need to calculate if the desired annual biomass production is to be 10,000 tons per year what should be the volume of the reactor okay now let’s say so what is the total mass of cell produced during the batch reactor for the batch uh culture X is XF minus X into V this is your total mass of cell produced during the batch culture and the total time for the culture is your t t total if you remember we did discuss T batch time plus T downtime TB plus TD how many number of batches are they uh doing in a given year so the number of batches would be 365 into how many days are there 365 days how many hours are there 24 if you divided by the total time you’ll be able to get the number of batches that are there so the number of batches carried out in one year is 365 into 24 divided by TT and the annual biomass production which is your tons per year would be X into number of bches clear till now now out of all of these what are the parameters that you have and what are the parameters that you don’t have are the equations that we are going to look for and we are going to choose and we are going to solve if you go back a couple of slides let’s say sorry if we go back a couple of slides for no we don’t need to go back couple of SES for this so what you have here the very first thing that let’s start with what what your mu is so mu is your mu Max s/ s + KS right and your me will become mu Max under a specific scenario when your XS is very very very very very very very less than your substrate so in this particular scenario what is your KS which is your 0.7 MGR per liter your s is pretty huge value as compared to your KS so in this particular case we can assume that to happen happen so your YX by S would be x – x / s – s your X becomes y x by s s – s + x not I have to keep the question open here side okay now now if you remember the equation where X was x e to^ Mt so if I do l x by X is Mu Max t b this is your batch time the T that we had here was your batch time so I’m rewriting that equation going backward into that okay so your TB will become 1 by mu Max lwn X by X right now X is X not sorry uh X is y x by s s – s + x this is the equation that we have identified right so your TB will become 1 by mu Max lawn 1 + YX by s x s minus SF so this is how we will estimate the value of s sorry TB now what are the parameters what are the values that are provided to us in this particular question so if you remember if we go back to the question what would be your s not or S initial 4% weight by volume methanol and a subate conversion is 98% is desirable right so 4% weight by volume so your si or S not is 4% weight by volume so let’s say if it is that means 4 G per 100 ml right that then only you will get weight by volume right in percentage 4 G per 100 ml so that means 40 G per liter okay so now you have your s not what is the SF s final 98% conversion of 98% is desirable in the process so 0.02 2% is still left so your final concentration that would be left 98% has been convered inverted 2% is left so 0.02 into 40 G per liter will give you 0.8 G per liter right so now you have your s not you have your SF I have this I have this do I have YX by S already the biomass yield from substrate is 0.42 G per G YX by S is 0.42 G per gam is given you’re given with your mu Max so I have my mu Max I have my YX by S do I have my X not initial cell concentration is 0.1 G per liter I have my X knot so once you put in all of those values you’ll get your TB to be 11.35 hours so your X final would be x e power mu Max TB so your X final would be 16.5 G per liter this is your final cell concentration per liter excuse me clear till now the very first slide we had that the total mass of cell produced during the cell culture was XF – x into V your XF is 16.5 X KN is 0.1 that means 16.5 – 0.1 that becomes 16.4 into V what is your V 1,000 so your total cell Mass would be 16 ,400 kgs right 16.5 – 0.1 it’s already given we have estimated our XF what is the downtime is 5 hours right so your total time is 5 + uh 11.3 5 that becomes 16.35 hours right so now 365 into 24 / 16.35 will give me 536 batches and I know my X I know my number of batches that will give me around 8,790 20.4 tons per year this is how we use these equations sorry for the mess I just didn’t want it to lose the the slide of the question because we have to come back to it again and again that’s why I’m using all the space provided good idea now what was the last question so if the desired annual biomass production is to be one is to be 10,000 tons per year what should be the volume of the reactor now if 1,000 gives you 87904 tons per year right how much will give you 10,000 that’s rearrangement so your answer that you should get is 1,137 6 M Cub so this should be the volume that should give you 10,000 tons per year simple I had given this Extra Spaces to solve this one is something that might relate to what you are going to do would you like to try solving this by yourself it’s a pretty straightforward so strain ofi or equoli has been genetically engineered to produce human protein a batch culture is started by inoculating 12 G of cells into 100 lit fermenter so your volume is L 12 G of cells is your inoculation that is your X KN and the fermentor containing 10 G per liter glucose so the nutrient content is 10 G per liter the maximum specific growth rate of the culture is 0.9 per hour assuming that the culture is growing at the maximum specific growth rate in the exponential phase it remains constant mu is equal to Mu Max the biomass yield from glucose is 0.575 G per gam so you’re given with YX by S you’re given with your mu Max x notot s anything else that I missed the V you have pretty much all the parameters so estimate the time required to read reach ex stary reach stationary phase your X notot is 12 G per 100 L which is your 0.12 G per liter right we did that equation in the previous question was TB is 1 by mu Max long 1 + YX by s x s minus SF this was your equation that we have used for the the batch time are you provided with your s not you provided with your s not right the we are going to assume all the substate was consumed so you’ll find your TB in this case to be 4.3 hours the other aspect is the what will be the final cell density if the fermentation is stopped after only 70% of the substrate is consumed so your XF so if if only the 70% is consumed your batch time will change if only 70% was consumed your batch time will change so you have to estimate your batch time again and when you will do that you will get because your SF is now 0.3 of s not your s not was 12 G 12 G no uh 10 G so it becomes 3 G per liter right so SF becomes 3 G per liter at that time your TB should come around 3.94 hours so because we changed the substrate how much substrate was consumed my batch time changed so your XF is X KN E power mu Max DB your final concentration of XF would be 4.1 16 G per liter excuse me the B sorry oh you’re still writing you don’t have to write these these these these particular questions are available in your sh and Kari if you have solved that in the past see the reason I gave you this particular question in the previous one the intent is for you to understand what TB is how we estimate those TB how this equation that xal to sorry xal to x e power UT comes into picture what your me is what your me Max is now what we are left with is the Fed batch cultivation we can start the FED batch cultivation after taking a 10 minutes break if that be okay e e okay welcome back I hope the break was long enough or not long enough for many other people who are still missing here okay so we have discussed batch uh design of the batch reactor in detail so now we are going to get into the FED batch so we we when we started our conversation today in the morning we were looking at three different modes of uh cultivation one was the batch cultivation fed batch cultivation and then third was the cstr or the contr thir tank reactor now fed batch just like is an opposite I will not say it’s an opposite so in a batch reactor you have no input output in fed batch at least at least you have an input so that’s the only difference between the patch and the FED batch it has an input now what it does for us is that it gives us certain control you will see in the further slides but I will discuss a little bit about those type of controls so let’s say if I want to if if too much of substrate is injurious to the health of my cells I can limit the flow of my substrate right so it provides me some form of control if I have to have multiple types of substrate to produce uh for my cell growth I can do that or if I can regulate the the the growth factors that are required I can do that so that’s why the FED batch has a very versatile application in terms of uh where you can apply and that is where we were discussing like in some of the recent DNA applications that we have discussed in as part of the synthetic biology you might be able to go back into those references and see that they have used fed batch as the growth process or the cultivation process of choice so fed batch culture is a semi batch operation so nutrients are fed either intermittently or continuously during the course of the operation so if you have let’s say this is a reactor you have an input coming in there is a limit to which we go in terms of adding the the substrate concentr or the substrate of the total biomass would be there so the volume is at least up to 80% not more than that we still want to keep a little bit of head space any idea we keep that head space for gas mixing like or the for the transfer so nutrients uh so we the culture both is harvested only at the end of the operational period once we have reached the full volume either fully or partially so we once it has reached the volume I can remove the cell cultures and then I can restart so repeated fed batch till the cells remain fully viable and productive so we can keep on repeating it so one of the more feed streams but no affluent we can have more than one feed Stream So as I said if more than one carbon sources are required or if more than one nutrient is required I can have that and if the nutrients are my rate limiting I can change the flate I can control them so fed batch at least provides me some form of control so if in your work if you require control for your product formation fed batch would be a very good option the culture volume increases continuously because you keep on adding the nutrients right so the culture volume is increasing you’re not exiting out anything you keep on adding so a Fed batch culture is a dynamic operation the concentration of the limiting nutrients in the culture can be manipulated and the neutrient conent sorry Neutron concentration profile can remain at a constant level or to follow a predetermined profile so either you keep it constant so let’s say if this is your reactor you keep the nutrient concentration or the flow rate constant or you have put it as such that okay first half an hour this would be the flow rate the second half half an hour there will be another type of flow like the flow rate will increase or decrease depending upon what you’re trying to do sometimes if you give less substrate to your host or to the micros they might be developing a different type of metabolites right because metabolic pathways will change they will try to adjust themselves a batch mode is used to end the fermentations once it has reached that 0 % volume close everything you run it as a batch that is what it is used it ends as a batch so manipulation of one or more feed rates uh a mean of regulating the nutrient concentration controlling the key reaction rates uh what compounds should be fed and how they should be fed or how they should be added those are the controls that we have this benefits When You’re let’s say if if there is a cell as I was explaining at that time if there is a cell that can actually use two three different types of carbon sources and depending upon the type of carbon Source it can develop different types of products and your intention is to get all those products so let’s say if I okay help me out here if my intention is to generate natural uh natural color natural color with a different product also like both of them have to be done at the same time with the host whichever host I’m choosing for the natural color the host prefers a specific carbon Source or if I have the carbon Source if it is less in concentration it it tends to go and produce only the product a if I have more of my uh substrate it produces product a but it also produces my natural color so if my intent is to get more of my natural color what will I do I’ll keep on in like I’ll keep my flu rate high right I’ll provide it more nutrient if it was other way around I’ll keep my nutrient fluorate low so that only my natural is produced more so those type of controls are possible in a Fed batch reactor it’s just an example okay so you can maximize the cell formation rate for a constant cell Mass yield the subsid concentration maintained at a value that maximizes the specific growth rate now the MU Max is the max at the the concentration at which we can reach if I can keep on changing I can keep on maintaining my muax or I’ll keep on increasing it it will always be in increasing order once it has not reached the plateau the feed rate regulated to hold the substate concentration constant at the desired value until the reactor is full once the ferment is full it is run as a batch mode the advantages of the FED batch intermittent feeding of substrate and maintains low substrate concentration that can help in substrate inhibition if my substrate is the inhibiting factor I’ll maintain a lower substrate concentration so no inhibition I can get higher cell density in fed batch as compared to batch uh there is this catabolite repression uh example would be a penicillin fermentation process uh if you are changing the concentration of your subate it might lead in the in in the penicil fermentation the presence of the glucose basically lead to uh catabolite repression and the same thing happens with respect to the bakery eats fermentation if too much glucose is available ethanol generation can take place because of the glucose phosphorilation so that is considered as a crafty effect so if you are able to control your flow of your substrate in the fermenter you’re going to avoid these two types of issues so if you’re are going for penicillin fermentation what should be the reactor that you’re going to choose or the cultivation mode that you’re going to choose fed batch because that gives you the control right to avoid catabolite repression if you’re going for baker’s yeast fermentation fed batch auxotrophic mutants or expressions of control genes uh inducers and repressors so let’s say if you if you want to have that mutated uh versions of uh no not mut if there are Gene selective gen that needs to be activated or metabolic pathways that needs to be activated in the ecoli or any of the microbes that you’re putting into the FED batch by changing the repressors or or the the promoters that you’re going to send through as part of your nutrient you can change the expression so extension of the operating time supplement of water lost by evaporation and decreasing viscosity of the cultured broth comes now it come now comes the whole design equation and this would be the main one so for the FED batch now the whole equation will change if you remember we had in minus out plus generation minus consumption is equal to accumulation right so in this case again your DX by DTV is is your accumulation term you have an N this time let’s say so there is an in for the feed and there is a in for the substrate so if I’m only looking looking at the cell Mass concentration I’m looking at FX KN so that’s my feed in anything out nothing out def definitely there is a generat which is your V mu net X this is a simple mass balance okay this is a very simple mass balance so since DX by DT can be written as because the volume is not constant in this case in the case of the batch reactor the volume was constant in the case of fed batch the volume is not constant it’s changing by the time you’re adding your substrate so that’s why you will be differentiating that also and that is the reason why you have this V DX by DT and X DV by DT because you’re changing the volume with respect to time with respect to time then your FX not uh plus v muxx is equal to V DX by DT plus X DV by DT in the end the equation sorry I’ll keep on repeating this is the equation that is the most important your D is f over V now your D here is dilution rate f is your feed V is your total volume mu is f/ V so F and V is V plus ft the same equation here and the equation for the munet is given as mon not growth Model A different model of that application what is St State when things don’t change with respect to time right what is quasi steady state when T tends to zero when T tends to zero delt tends to zero explain it in lame and way to me instantaneous uh instantaneous yeah when the change is very very small so let’s say in a Fed batch your cell growth will continue till the time you have your substrate right the the time it is about to finish you start the tap you add the substrate so your cell Mass again starts growing up is it in a Cy steady state it is in a costy steady state scenario if but that is not the the reasoning of it to be in a costy stady state scenario your mu Max is pretty much equal to your dilution rate that is what happens in a CI stady state in this case it will all it will be almost equal to your dilution rate so muum net is equal to d right this is what happens in a CI steady state that’s the reason I asked now the total biomass the final equation that we get in terms of if you remember we had that xal to x e to^ minus Mt in case of the batch same equation here would be XT is XT KN or YX by s s f into T So balance on rate limiting substrate the DS by DT is FS not mu XT by YX by S at c c steady state essentially all the substrate is consumed so no significant level of substrate can accumulate hence as CI stady state is reaches all the subset is consumed more subsets comes in no accumulation then the new thing starts so no significant level of substate can accumulate hence FS not is equal to MXT by YX by S this is an important parameter here the most important equation would be this and this the product formation in terms of the FED batch reactor the final equation that if you do the mass balance for the product the final equation that we’ll end up with would be the P equal to p z v ided by V ft QX qpx QP you remember right 1X X DP by DT the specific product growth rate let’s solve this question very quickly it’s a very simple one so what you have is in a batch culture operating with intermittent addition of glucose solution values of the following parameters are given at time t equal to 2 hours so your time is given as 2 hours so when the system is at quy steady state so at Cy steady state so at quity steady state so V is given as 1,000 ml s not is given to you the ks value is given to you X not at time T is also given to you as uh sorry X not s not is given f is given DV by DT which is 200 mL per hour mu M which is your mu Max is given as 0.3 per hour y of M x/ S is given 0.5 G dry weight cells per gram glucose you need to determine V now which equation will you use for the V do you see any equations here your V is V + ft right your V is V plus ft your V is already given as 600 ml you can estimate right V is given f is given T is given you can estimate your V not to be 600 mL and your D the dilution is f/ V which will come around to be 0.2 per hour now for your second part your s is KSD by mu M minus D why where am I getting this equation from s is given as how much what is your KS KS is given to you 0.1 D is already known muum is known your s will come out to be 2 G per liter so you have your s you have your D how do you estimate your XT see it is asking you to find s x s XT and P at Cy steady state if QP is given us 0.2 G and a product per gram and the cells per hour is p not is zero there is no product at time t equal to zero so I have found my S I have found my I need to find my XT now XT from the equation would be XT + YX by s s ft I’m given by YX by S so XT + f YX by s s not t this will give me a value of 50 g similarly I have found my XT XS the P I’ll be using the equation here this one the moment I put all the values because I do have the F value I do have the FN value I have the Q P value I have the XM value do I have the XM value this is how you estimate the M value so your p with equation would come around to be 16 G per liter you don’t have to understand how we solved this sorry what this question question was sorry you do need to understand how we solved it by just understanding what were the equations we used but the most important part that you you should understand from this whole lecture today is what is the main difference between the batch and the FED batch what is the importance of the FED batch what are the benefits that you get out of fed batch and what are the benefits and advantages you get out of batch because depending on that plus depending upon what you’re trying to grow you would be able to design your own process once you get into your case studies okay we’ll end the lecture today here and uh we’ll meet tomorrow again for heat and mass transfer and the scaleup those are another set of equations and equations and equations see you all tomorrow thank you how do you find the XM

AgVault pioneers new avenues for ethanol to unlock value beyond its traditional use as a fuel source.

AgVault has developed a precision fermentation system that integrates with ethanol facilities to produce high-value products such as yeast and yeast products for livestock and animal feed. The system consists of three parts: carbohydrate feedstock preparation, precision fermentation, and downstream product processing. It offers high efficiency, lower costs, and superior returns on investment. According to AgVault’s co-founder, a co-located facility with 16,000 tonnes of annual production capacity can generate a 35% ROI. Precision fermentation is a sustainable and efficient approach to protein production, using microorganisms like yeast and bacteria. AgVault’s technology enables ethanol facilities to diversify their products, creating alternative revenue streams. The company sees significant opportunities for expansion in untapped markets, including food, nutraceuticals, and biotech products. With its patented system, AgVault aims to revolutionize protein production and capitalize on the growing demand for eco-friendly products.

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FrieslandCampina Abandons Precision Fermentation Venture, Refocuses on Core Dairy Business

FrieslandCampina, a Dutch dairy cooperative, has decided to discontinue its investment in precision fermentation, a technology that produces proteins and nutrients without dairy cows. The company initially adopted this technology to meet the growing demand for plant-based protein alternatives. However, due to changing market conditions and increasing competition, FrieslandCampina has reassessed its strategy and opted to refocus on its core dairy operations.

The company’s CEO, Jan Derck van Karnebeek, stated that they can achieve more in terms of sustainability by improving the CO2 footprint of dairy products. FrieslandCampina will continue to explore hybrid products that blend dairy and plant-based ingredients, but only if they meet specific criteria related to taste, nutrition, sustainability, and convenience. The company believes that dairy remains the foundation and that hybrid products can play a role in offering consumers more sustainable options.

FrieslandCampina has already introduced hybrid products, such as butter blends and “milky porridge”, and will continue to develop these products based on their dairy expertise and commitment to quality. The company’s decision to discontinue precision fermentation is a strategic move to prioritize its core business and focus on sustainability and innovation in the dairy industry.

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Crafting a revolutionary new pet food through advanced precision fermentation techniques.

Scientists at the University of Illinois and Bond Pet Foods have developed a novel protein source through precision fermentation, combining yeast and chicken protein. The study aimed to assess the safety of this protein in pet food. The researchers inserted chicken DNA into yeast, cultivated it in large tanks, and then formulated it into dog kibble. A six-month feeding study found that the brewed chicken protein was safe and nutritious for dogs, with no differences in body weight, physical condition, or blood chemistry compared to a control group. The protein was also highly digestible and showed beneficial changes to the dogs’ gut microbes and metabolites. The study’s findings suggest that brewed chicken protein could be a sustainable pet food option. The researchers noted that the yeast product also provides complex B vitamins, amino acids, and minerals, and has been shown to have positive effects on pet health, such as elevating beneficial faecal bacteria and immunoglobulin A. The study’s results are promising for the potential use of brewed chicken protein as a sustainable pet food option.

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The global market for precision fermentation-based egg alternatives is projected to expand at a compound annual growth rate of 51.5%.

The global market for Precision Fermentation Egg Alternatives is expected to grow from $57.8 million in 2024 to $890 million by 2031, at a CAGR of 51.5%. This growth is driven by increasing demand for animal-free proteins, functional performance in food processing, and concerns around sustainability and allergen-free products. Precision fermentation enables the production of egg proteins, such as ovalbumin, using engineered microbes without animal-derived inputs. Leading companies in this market include Onego Bio, OTRO, The Every Company, OsomeFood, and ProteinDistillery. The market is segmented by application into baking, confectionery and beverages, and other food uses, and by product type into ovalbumin and other functional egg proteins. The Asia-Pacific region is projected to exhibit substantial growth due to expanding consumer interest in sustainable proteins and a surge in precision fermentation R&D. Key trends in 2025 include rapid growth in clean label and animal-free demand, avian flu-driven supply shocks and price volatility, and scaling from pilot to commercial production and investment surge. Regulatory momentum in North America and Europe is also supporting the growth of this market.

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ICAN Webinar about biomanufacturing, October 28th 2024



Speakers: “Manufacturing with precision fermentation technology” Rasmus Rune Hansen, 21st.BIO “Biomanufacturing …

I’m I’m rosmus Hansen as Matt said I’m uh the director of uh of client development and and project management here at the 21st bio um the part about project managements I think stems from the when we started the company and and each of us had like 10 different hats we were wearing at the same time so project management seems like a seemed like a a nice bucket of of other things uh these days I’m using more and more my time at um attracting new clients and also running uh projects with clients um I’m originally a microbiologist and a and a European patent attorney uh spent 19 years at at Novo science before switching to 21st bio so I want to talk about manufacturing uh with the Precision fermentation let’s see this slides are not changing there we go so if you look uh in the bottom left corner you see the source here is McKenzie and Company bio revolution in in 2020 they made this report where um where they calculated that uh that actually 60% of the physical input uh in in today’s world uh can be produced with Biology uh of course a lot a lot of the stuff that we we use is uh B based on Rock concrete steel stuff like that uh but also a lot of the energy and materials based on fossil fuels can actually be supplemented uh or or even substituted um with things that are made out of biology um we talked about some years ago in noval Sims that sugar was the new oil uh you can say back then a lot of the Technologies were not mature enough to really make this transition uh I think today we have a much better shot at it uh you can say both there’s there’s more urgency there’s uh there’s more Supply chains that are under pressure also in in Foods um and of course the production technology on the biological side have uh have evolved a lot since then um so not changing so what we do at 21st bio is uh we’re providing technology for production of proteins with Precision fermentation so it’s not our ambition to be a production company uh we want to uh to develop uh and optimize Technologies for our clients and then they need to go out and and either establish production facilities or produce with contract manufacturers um and uh take a product to Market uh a lot of those products will be B2B uh some of them will also be b2c but but we see ourselves as uh you can say not necessarily the very first part of of the supply chain uh because if you look on the left here the molecules can either be be something you take from nature we have later on milk protein as an example uh something you take from a cow or potentially a human as well um the molecules can also be invented uh or screened in large screening programs to find the molecule that has the best uh capabilities for for for some certain application so then once you find your you found your molecule we can help you actually make the production technology that enables you to produce the molecule economically feasible in in large scale um and I think the core competencies here is the strain development where the strains are are cloned with with the genes encoding your molecule and optimized and then the processes uh for fermentation and downstream development are are being um developed and and and optimized and then then lastly I think we see a very important point in helping our clients transition to larger scale um as you’ll see in a few slides we’ve we’ve invested in Pilot facilities here in uh in subo Copenhagen where we are based um to enable customers to get to the the first 1200 lers uh and from there we help them move on typically to a CMO with with larger volumes uh for some of them also into their their own facilities um but we’ve seen really that the ging step going from from the lab uh and into the larger fermentors both there’s been a a lack of capacity but there’s certainly also a lack of Competency to uh to do that step and it’s something we see that it’s quite often being underestimated how difficult it is um I think coming from the the industrial world we we all know examples where even established companies they I mean sometimes they even use uh two years to to do a successful Tech transfer um of their own strain from one facility to maybe to a new one so I think a lot of a lot of startups really really underestimate how difficult it can be often times it it’s related to you know the process conditions you run in your lab or maybe even in your pilot you you cannot you cannot copy those conditions one to one when going into another facility if you’re if you’re going into a CMO for example that CMO is used for a lot of other things um at the same time uh so obviously the conditions that the equipment need to be able to run over has quite broad ranges um but maybe it cannot accommodate you know the specific ranges that you need for your process then you need to do a lot of optimization to find okay then what’s the what’s the best alternative uh and and that’s not necessarily easy right sometimes you need to even invest in specific equipment uh at the CMO to really uh be able to get uh good enough performance um yeah so I would say our core competence actually spans quite broadly here uh inhouse we do the strain development we do the process uh development and optimization in in a scale up to 1200 liters um and then we have uh the fermentation and DSP Consultants that helps the client go into the CMO do the trick tick transfer and then succeed with the with the first runs in uh in larger scale course that’s where you start to commit a lot of money right when you when you run the larger fermentors um it’s a you know cut per run increases a lot so you want to do that uh right as quickly as possible so just briefly on uh on the value chain here we think it’s quite important that that um to kind of include the farmers here uh of course as I just said we developed uh processes and strains and so forth uh but but really fermentation is based on agricultural output uh typically it’s it’s purified sugar uh that’s what these processes have been developed for um because so far in history even though companies like Novis have produced large quantities it’s still quite small volumes and quantities compared to what we are potentially looking at in the future so going into lower value compounds like milk protein Silk protein for example we’re talking about potential volumes that are much much larger than what you know all the enzymes no enzymes has produced over the years um and there of course the carbon source is uh is super important uh because these molecules are going to be competing uh at low cost so you need cheap sugar sources which means they need to be fairly close to where you operate um they need to be purified only to the the the level that’s necessary um and and so forth so uh so the farmers play a a very important role and I think the one of the reasons we also want to highlight that is that when we move into milk proteins for example um we want to emphasize that there’s really no conflict with the farmers we’re talking about substituting molecules not replacing them uh because there such a a big demand for protein over the the many coming years that we need still all the available Production Technologies running at full speed so so the biological input both from us from the farmers as well um then there’s a fermentation and purification side of it which of course the CMOS play a large role here because they have established capacity um you know all the St startups that are operating in this field none of them have production capacity all of them more or less need to start with a CMO um which is difficult because a CMO is never optimized to your specific process so you’ll never have the best production economy with a CMO but it’s what enables you to get into the market start selling your your your product uh but eventually at least that’s if you have a product of any significant volume eventually you need to to build your own facility because that’s where you can start optimizing um and and and saving on your cost every year it’s it’s definitely one of the most important parts of of Nova’s success over the years that they’ve been able to uh improve strains and processes year year after year with about 5% um and you don’t get those uh Optimum izations and savings if you continue operating with a a CMO you can say in a nutshell you don’t really have the same you don’t have the same objective as the CMO right because every time you you do an optimization you actually need less of their capacity um so so they they don’t really have a big interest in in helping with that then lastly on on the product side um a lot of the outputs are going to be powdered proteins uh because that’s a very nice and stable form it’s easy to transport uh it needs to be probably resolubilized uh when formulated into products it can be food products for example uh drinks and and and and Foods where protein and protein functionality is tested or is is needed um and then we have the picture here of of the roles of of silk thread which is a nice example which is not food but a material that is is is not really uh available from any other sources uh because this this particular one is spider silk and uh and spiders cannot be grown industrially they they eat each other so so so the silk that you you know from your clothing is made by Silk worm it’s it’s it’s used to make a cocoon uh not a not a spider web so the properties are completely different of course the the products are produced by by b2c or B2B companies um and then uh purchased by fcmg companies making food products for example or uh or materials so here we sit in the very early end of the of the supply chain and the value chain we operate in in quite a broad variety of of fields uh Foods in terms of uh volumes um and and probably also potential right now I think the most important ones the milk proteins are are very important a lot of startups operating in this field because it’s so it’s it’s so obvious it’s h these proteins are good they’re nutritious but they also come from animals that that don’t have a very nice uh sustainability footprint that’s especially true for the milk proteins to a less extent for the egg proteins cell-based Meats it’s not something we do but there’s a lot of ingredients necessary for for the media uh for for self-based Meats um a lot of the ingredients are very very expensive growth factors for example that are known from s cultures in Pharma uh and there’s a big need to to produce those in uh in cheaper ways that are maybe not farma GMP but still have the right functionalities materials silks for example for textiles can also be uh something like collagens gelatines for for personal care compounds that today are extracted from from animals um use both in in in biofarma in in creams uh other personal care products um then agriculture where of course insecticides and fungicides typically are based on on chemistry uh chemistry which is uh not easily being degraded in the environment afterwards and and and oftentimes also have uh much broader uh activities than are needed now we we’re starting to see protein and peptides that are much more closely directed to specific pests uh which can be either insects or fungi potentially also bacteria um Rec compant and then lastly a fairly new field which is which is very very very interesting in in mining we see that a lot of the minerals that are used for uh for electrification uh I think more than 90% of those are controlled by China um and for example the Department of Defense in the US sees this as a major Supply crisis actually they they don’t like being very dependent on China for for these types of minerals including the rare earth that are very very important for for the electrification and Battery Technology um so the doe is actually or the dod Department of Defense is investing quite extensively in technology to extract minerals from spent mines um and some of these Technologies includes peptides and proteins which for some reason can bind to these Min minerals I think it’s it’s probably based on microbes that are trying to defend themselves against these uh toxic minerals and then they have they produce peptides uh that can bind them um probably to make them less harmful yes moving on so um this may be quite well known to you but but I I want to mention it anyway so um there’s a lot of challenges of scaling protein production and whereas you can say the very uh the very first part of the of the chain here the capabilities of making molecules designing new molecules uh that has been uh democratized so to say right you can do a lot with in silico screening uh you can do computer modeling come up with with new proteins and other compounds that that that has some specific applications that are improved compared to uh what was known before uh screening robots are being uh more accessible and can do can do high througho screening of lots and lots of lots of of protein variants um so that part is is quite easy um but the challenge is that you can make a lot which works in in the lab right but the the difficult part comes when you want to upscale it to to like the real life um and one thing is the microbial strain platforms uh so a lot of the work done in in small scale is based on University strains or public strains which are not really optimized for producing at large scale um um at the same time you have you have access to molecular tools that are are public uh they can be pretty good but but again um not really made for upscaling um lastly the competences for actually taking Technologies into large scale typically they’ve been sitting in the big companies um and and they’ve not been available broadly for smaller companies um I think that’s that’s beginning to change I think we see more more senior people from the big companies are are spreading out into uh into the startups but but I think for for some years you know after maybe 2020 and a couple of years from there uh this part of the journey was really really vastly uh underestimated how difficult it is and how how different these competences are compared to what you know if you’ve only worked in a lab and I think that was kind of what actually was the basis of of uh what our Founders saw when they when they kind of decided there’s a need and and we can help uh meet that need um so what they wanted to do was basically yeah accelerate the world’s quest for for these sustainable foods and materials you know over the years been a lot of good Innovation uh that really appap and the upscaling um and one important part of that was you can make a nice uh nice nice strain to produce your protein for example but if you if you’re not able to reach productivity levels or tighter levels that are going to be economically feasible I mean then you’re going to fail um and they saw that that this The Strain library that they have at noesis the former over SS um that that this library was capable of making production strains that could deliver uh productivity in in kind of an order of magnitude better than than what you saw a lot of other places so the idea really was to bring this technology to to be available for uh for other companies outside the the the core areas of of noesis which of course are the enzymes today I think we are approaching around 60 employees in uh in Copenhagen Denmark and uh in Davis California and and we are accelerating uh this in with with two different models I would say so one of them is strain development for uh for specific uh proprietary compounds so for example if uh if you’re a company and you’ve done your your protein screening and you’ve selected a variant of some molecule which is now more thermostable or it has changed functionality or something you can file a patent on your compound then we can make a strain specifically for your compound it’s exclusive to you because you own the compound it allows you to to go into the market uh and sell your compound exclusively with with good production economy you need to be able to control uh the application testing application development formulation uh everything that’s Downstream from from producing the molecule um but we can enable you to produce it at uh at at commercially relevant um production economy in the other model there are some proteins where we’ve said these proteins have so large potential uh that uh we want to make them available to a lot of companies in parallel uh and the first one we selected was uh becto globine the the biggest uh protein in in Whey from cow’s milk um so we developed a production strain for blg b electr globine um and we develop it to a certain point uh and then we offered it out in the market uh to customers that needs to to do the scaling uh do the application development and also do the downstream process development um we many companies actually want to to do their own DSP to give the molecule specific properties that are different from from from others have they want to patent around that uh to kind of Mark out their their space um other companies are focusing on on application development to make make products out of the out of the protein um but I think the main uh the main reason for offering this this program as we call it is that um the potential volumes of of the milk proteins are are so large that it’s going to take a lot of uh a lot of companies to to cover the field in combination uh and likely some of them are going to fail as well so so there’s definitely enough space for everybody um we are we’re working on a new program uh with the casins so casin being the the the major proteins in milk that are particularly used for cheese um and we are starting to to offer that into the market as well and the last Point here fast to Market um the important point being that the trins we have from noesis have been approved both in the US and in in Europe for production of food enzymes meaning that they are well known to the regulatory authorities um been uh adapted over many many years so that potential toxins and problematic side activities have been removed which means that uh it’s much easier to uh to have them approved for uh by the regulatory authorities um it’s quite easy to get the grass notification in the US uh it’s certainly not the same in Europe uh regardless whether your strain are known to them or not um I think that’s a that’s a whole separate discussion but that’s one of the uh that’s one of the points in this industry where Europe is really really lacking behind so an example uh um substituting milk protein milk consists of about 3% protein I think there are around 200 different proteins in milk um the the major ones being the quines which constitute around 80% of these uh about 3% um the way being uh I think the fourth the biggest protein in in the way is blg but obviously you can see that that of the whole content of the milk the protein is just a a fairly small part but these proteins are very very nice they have nice amino acid Constitution they they are very good nutritious proteins um and therefore it makes a lot of sense to try to uh to replicate them with uh another production technology yeah with uh with an Outlook to 10 billion people uh to be fed uh it’s quite clear that um with the with the current Production Technologies we are not going to be able to supply um enough protein especially uh protein produced by animals take up a lot of space and of course if you talk about cows they emit a lot of greenhouse gases especially methane which is uh which is not good if you look at um at uh the LCA of producing milk proteins by a Precision fermentation it’s quite clear that you can uh you can actually on more or less all parameters um reduce the input very very significantly if we look at the water use uh the the reduction is uh more than 95% um of course because cows live a long life drink a lot of water uh a lot of water goes into also uh you know processing the milk um so here you just do that much much more efficiently when you talk about the land use I think it’s a 70 60 or 70% of all agriculture is used to produce feed to to an so obviously if you have much much more efficient conversion of of your biomass to protein which a microb can do you can save a lot of land um and that land can either be used to to uh you can say capture CO2 in in trees for example um or it could be produ used to produce uh other crops that that humans can eat greenhouse gas emission is is very very large especially because cows burb a lot of of methane um so potential huge savings there and then also a very very nice uh savings on on energy lastly we we wanted to brag a little bit about this um again the self-affirmation Gras so the grasp process you uh you submit to the FDA in the US your uh your doia in the doia you describe your production process uh for the way you you make your compound and you argue that it’s safe for for a lot of different reasons in our case we argue that it’s safe because the strain has been used for a lot of other approved food products it’s a strain which is actually found in in food products in Japan for example it’s a fungus called aspila oray so even the strain itself can be used for food and then the protein we’re producing is more or less identical to to what cows are producing and of course then we know that humans have been exposed to these uh compounds for many many years so now the we’ve got the What’s called the self-affirmed grass status in the US which allows our customers to to actually go on the US market and sell the Protein that’s not happening yet because none of them have have scaled uh to a size where they are actually entering the market um but we expect them to do that during 25 so that was my last slide Matt you said a short round of questions now and then uh a longer round of discussion later sure yeah I I think for the sake of time we might move on to Kelly but thank you so for thisa it’s fantastic I I know I person have a of questions and I’m really excited about the work that you’re doing so thank you so much all right I’ll stop sharing okay uh I’m gonna share my screen here great okay there we go are you seeing the slideshow yes we are okay great um so I just have a few slides they’re not nearly as professional as the ones that Rasmus just showed us so but uh um I’m going to give a little bit of background on myself a little bit on some things that I learned about uh scaling up uh working with Industrial Products at AG biome and then some general needs that I perceive in the industry and a little bit about um what stable fermentation can offer which uh I’m working with them as a consultant right now so um so let’s see how we do this effici there we go okay so short little bio for me um I have degrees in chemical engineering and environmental engineering I had started a company called Pastoria bioscience which was a biopesticide company um sold that to senta I did work at AGG biome for about six years which was a local biotech company here that um produced biopesticides and also uh traits for crop plants um out of a very large library of Novel microbes and I went from there to a company called join bio which is up in Boston and they were producing biofertilizers which were engineered microbes for that um I was the VP of R&D at oh that there’s no name on that one all right that’s DMC biotechnologies which is a a local company here uh they have a lab here in morseville North Carolina near RTP and another one in Boulder Colorado um and then the last one there which also the name didn’t come through uh anyway slide translation not always working that is the logo logo for Sable fermentation which is a a new local cdmo for fermentation and downstream processing here so I have a lot of background in producing biological products uh doing the process development doing the scale up the registration and the um actual commercialization of products for agriculture and for industrial production and so some of the things that I’ve learned from what goes on with these small companies uh and this applies not only to AGG biome but to all of those other companies I work for um and rasma already alluded to a lot of this finding tollers to produce even relatively small pilot batches up to 100 liters can be very challenging um there aren’t a lot of facilities that will that will do that especially for nonfarm non phological products non um human Pharma uh and so people need to build in more time for that this is a thing that I think trips up a lot of small companies is not leaving enough time to uh deal with some of these issues and the next one then of course is getting the permits right um uh the regulatory regime of course is different everywhere you go um in the US it even varies state by state and so you have to get uh permits at a national level and a state level and sometimes even a local level even to just move your microbes around um much less to produce them at larger scale and then to release them into the environment if that’s what the product is for um so people need to build in more time for that um you need to build in time to get the operators at a contract facility or a to are familiar with working with new novel microbes um this is going to be the case with a lot of these novel industrial processes too even if your host strain is ecoli um the engineered strain that you’re bringing to them um from a a process like something that that uh 21st bio would do for you is not going to be familiar to that Toller and so they need extra time to understand how to handle that microb what its specific quirks are in their process and as rasma saluted every facility is slightly different so it’s not going to be optimal for your micro even coming out of a professional uh optimization process like 21st bio is going to offer so you got to build in time for that um your Tech transfer pricing is going to be very important as for a small company you have to understand you know a Toller is going to charge for their time to start off with and so you want that to be that you want that to be a separate body of work from the actual manufacturing and moving to an outcome based pricing that’s what’s important for a small company and as was previously discussed you know you as the as the producer your incentives are not the same as the Toller the Toller wants to charge you for as many runs as possible you as the producer want to produce in as few runs as possible so as to optimize your your production cost um so that’s that’s a negotiation that people don’t often uh plan ahead for or think it’s going to take as long as it does or be as contentious as it can um and it’s it’s just one of these are just a few things that you know I have I’ve learned in in doing a lot of this that is it’s just going to be very impactful all of these things as we move into a more biobased um manufacturing economy and then um some of the other things that uh Jen suggested that I should discuss with all of you today are General issues that have come up in the field of biomanufacturing and so again some of this we’ve already alluded to in Rasmus talk but there there really aren’t that many options um at the pilot scale so 500 liters up to about 25,000 lers it’s very difficult to find a facility that will produce at those levels and um the the facilities that are available are you know in high demand right so it can it can be challenging and and that’s the scale you know up to about 25,000 liters that a small biotech company especially for agriculture is trying to produce at kind of right at that level to do their initial field trials their registration trials their sort of regulatory process they don’t they don’t need a 100,000 lers of material um but it’s often difficult to find this intermediate scale fermentation um and we already heard that uh every process needs different Downstream processing so a Toller may or may not have the right equipment it may not be similar to what you’ve worked within the lab it may not translate immediately depending on how your microb behaves um and so you might actually have to go to another facility for that and I experienced that numerous times at different companies where we could find a fermentation Toller but then the downstream processing either they didn’t have the right equipment or they didn’t have it on the same site um having to then you know contract with a yet a third company to go actually do the downstream processing especially drying a lot of fermentation facilities don’t have extensive capabilities for drying um and so that can also complicate your your bio Manu manufacturing process so as we’re thinking about you know developing all of these um bioeconomy type infrastructure um it’s important to think about DSP in ter in addition to fermentation right how are how are we going to enable that um and then I didn’t even get into formulation which is a a whole other can of worms that you can get into after you’ve done you’ve done all of that um and then the other thing that happens when you’re scaling up is of course that your supply chain is not optimal right your your raw materials can be hard to find in those exact intermediate quantities it’s easy to buy um you know one kilo or five kilos from Sigma but you don’t want that unit pricing when you get up to trying to produce even at 25,000 liters and yet some of the raw material producers are not used to selling anything at less than tank car uh volumes and and so you know getting getting your supply chain to match up with what you need to produce can be challenging um and high unit course unit costs of course drive up the cost of the final product and that’s not what you’re after so um all of those are issues that that uh have have come up for me um and then this slide is really just about the digging in a little bit more into the lack of some of those resources um I a lot of the products that we’re talking about these Industrial Products the things that that the McKenzie uh study showed can be produced by biology um often can be difficult to find a place to do it because the most of the facilities if they’re if they’re geared for pharmaceutical production or certain other kinds of products if your product is non Pharma and non food they don’t want to handle it uh the the two regulatory regimes you know especially in the US between the FDA and the USDA and the EPA uhuh they will they will not try to make those match and so it is not cost effective for a facility that’s doing cgmp that is making Pharmaceuticals that is making you know food ingredients to handle a product that doesn’t fit into that regime you could do it but then of course it drives your cost up and especially for products that are Commodities or for agriculture uh the cost uh just doesn’t make sense for what you need to be able to sell that product for so that’s that’s an issue um another uh problem comes up when you’ve got a non-canonical host right if your if your host is anything other than eoli or sacy or basilis um the facilities are going to say wow how do we how do we make sure that everything in our facility is clean if it’s a spor forer especially if it’s a spor forer and it’s not you know something they’re used to handling they’re like oh my God how are we going to make sure that you know everything is clean for that for the next customer or our own production that’s coming in after that um if you have a a non canonical microbe and maybe you haven’t engineered it but it’s you know a wild type host strain that came directly from the environment you probably don’t want to use antibiotics in that fermentation because it’s probably not engineer it’s not resistant to standard antibiotics right and so um we ran into this at a biome where we had a pilot scale facility that was otherwise very accommodating happy to work with us everything was going fine and then they found out they couldn’t use antibiotics to control the the cleanliness in their facility and they were completely at a loss like well we don’t we don’t know what to do now so that was a problem um and then if you if you’ve gone even further where you have canonical host and you’ve engineered that microb and then you want to produce it at scale and then you want to ship it and you want to release it and everything else you’re going to have a whole different regulatory regime your contract facility is going to want to see you know copies of all of your permits they want to know you know how can they be sure that this microbe isn’t hazardous to themselves to their workers to release you know they don’t they of course don’t want to get in trouble if they have an accidental spill of the stuff so they you know there’s going to be a lot of additional regulatory documentation and just kind of getting everybody comfortable with that and then there’s going to be a new growth protocol there’s going to be new down Downstream processing so like I said earlier you got to build in extra time for the tech transfer around things like that so um all all of this stuff I think kind of doesn’t really doesn’t really surface in people’s attention when they’re talking about biomanufacturing until they’re pretty far down the road um so I’m hoping that you know this kind of a forum we can you know have some discussion about how to make that situation better so um as a consultant for Sable fermentation I can uh discuss a little bit about what Sable offers um Sable is a new company cdmo uh starting up here in the Research Triangle Park area it’s actually going to be in Wake Forest North Carolina and um Sable is offering Consulting and technoeconomic Analysis services so I didn’t even I didn’t even touch on tea but that’s another another area where um you know make making sure that a biom manufactured product is actually capable of making money it you know can be produced economically in such a way that the manufacturer will actually survive um this is this is a service there’s other companies that are offering this but we have a lot of expertise on the team so we’re we’re offering that and then uh a process development optimization scale up uh spray drying and analytical all of that is covered by the the equipment and the expertise we currently have on the team to dig into that a little more so Sable has fermentation up to 200 liters currently that’s uh being installed I think next week in the facility and then the plan is to go up to 25,000 liters with additional capacity uh on the same site and then uh all of this other equipment is already also available and is getting installed so the Imaging equipment the analytical capabilities which it’s pretty unusual for a company of this size to actually have all of that analytical including the hplc so I’m pretty excited about that that’s going to that’s going to allow a lot of um data collection of the output of the fermentations that a facility like this typically doesn’t have uh and then there’s some there’s quite a lot of Downstream capability um uh tangential flow for concentration or centrifugation the tubular Bowl centrifuge is kind of an unusual piece of equipment again for a company this size that that allows for a very concentrated cellular paste to come out and that can be very useful especially if you want to go then dry your product um and then the company owns a spray dryer um which is already up and running and can we can offer that service right now if you have things that that need to be spray dried um so that’s that’s very exciting uh this is really filling a niche here uh as we discussed a little bit earlier it’s difficult to find uh tollers that will do all of this and I think um the team that Sable has available is really unique in this area also um Tony herself the founder of the company Tony BCI she had a a long career at agbiome and before that at BASF she’s a very capable commercial executive um her uh first hire was a fermentation engineer who I personally hired at AGG biome so I was very pleased about that uh she serjan has a lot of experience uh she worked at Maron bio she was at AGG biome for almost 10 years so she’s done a lot of process development a lot of scale up lot of Downstream process development um they hired the uh operator of the equipment that they purchased so that person knows all of that equipment inside and out backwards and forwards so that’s that’s very exciting and we’ll have a a really capable staff actually on the ground in the lab uh and then myself I’m currently working with them as an adviser um with all of my experience in doing this kind of process development Tech transfer regulatory strategy all of that so very very excited about what we can offer as a team um and that’s my last slide so happy to take questions about that and have a have a good discussion fantastic thank you Kelly that’s really interesting and it’s it’s really great to see all the work that you’ve been doing and that Sable is doing right now um selfishly I would love to ask a first question to kick things off and then open the floor up um both of these presentations have me burning with uh a bunch of questions but I I’ll just ask one uh and for me it’s like from the perspective of an academic thinking about a spin out or from a startup company um there really are such different incentives in the near term to be highly standardized to fit into what limited capacity there is for a CMO or cdmo and then in the longer term to sort of own your own process that you know as you can tailor you then get that cost down or you get that product quality to where you need it to be um and so with these very different mismatches I feel like there could be a lot of sort of ort of um pitfalls where if we take a very simple one like uh mode of operation maybe in the beginning you’re you’re optimizing everything and you’re strain around batch mode uh fermentation and then longer term maybe you’re like okay a longer continuous campaign might make sense when I have my own equipment to do so but maybe you have don’t have the genetic stability that far out or you know all these other considerations um to either of you have have some advice or um some considerations for someone who’s thinking about that maybe being dragged in one way or really good for a CMO but then they never make commercial viability like how how to think about that Rasmus do you wanna you want to tackle that one yeah yeah yeah I mean at least I would say that um that if you are if you are betting on on the wrong strain uh I mean all the time you use on that strain is eventually lost I would say it’s it’s it’s a blind alley so you need to make the right choice as early as possible Right a lot of our companies are are people who started out as molecular biologist in the lab because they knew how to make uh strain construction but they never had access to Industrial strains right so it’s a very very difficult decision for them to to abandon their own strain program uh quite often it’s their own capabilities it’s uh potentially having to even fire people in the company because you may not need those competences anymore uh you’ve made promises to investors that you’re going to own your production technology and so forth and and we cannot offer that right we we’re based on licensing the noesis technology um so I I think um yeah I think it’s not a good advice to try to to get as far as you can uh with with your own if you know that it’s never going to be good enough um of course you you may need to take it far enough to make small samples to to do application testing and so forth but but really trying to start scaling a technology which is never going to be economically feasible that that’s a waste of money yeah I I would Echo that and I I think that’s that’s another area where the technoeconomic analysis is so important you can you can use those mathematical models to help you project into the future you know is is a particular host or a particular particular U production pathway metabolic pathway are are those eventually going to be scalable and be economical to to produce with or or not and you’re absolutely right people do kind of get a little bit um attached to their own their own strain their own technology and so I think you have to you have to go at it with a very clear eye towards you know what what does this really look like in the future and those models can help um what what constitutes a minimum viable product in a biolog iCal process is a matter of uh intense debate right is it um is it a small production sample is it a microbe that’s been scaled up to a certain scale is it is it you know actual customer verification about the the product um I think it kind of depends on the industry that you’re that you’re trying to get into somebody’s got a hand up theirs Paul hi everyone um first thank you to both of you for very nice presentations um I have maybe uh two questions if I’m allow or or one question and one is more a naive question but um all of that is great as an end user a company who um you know may buy some of these ingredients because we are not in in the business of producing these ingredients so we’re going to buy um let’s say we have um potential supplier of these ingredients I’m left with um maybe two herles that are very lightly addressed so far or at least I’ve seen for every conversations I’ve had um there is very little conversations around the targeting the right protein functionality and how can we be sure that the technology that you guys are presenting are really making the right functionality of the proteins and if you talk to a few professors around they are saying that’s the biggest hle today there is lots of dreams promised but how do you get that and then the second is the CO2 footprint analysis lots of nice dreams also 90 plus% CO2 reduction but when you talk to some engineering companies they say these guys are dreaming it’s never going to be like this and hearing that there is no production capabilities or everything is being scaled up how can we really be sure of the CO2 footprint uh so so for me these are the two hurdles for these ingredients to be Mass market and then the second one is maybe more um on Kelly but it’s not the first time that I see uh people like this they talk about fermentation capabilities in liters but as an end user I don’t care liters I want to know how many kilos of powders can I get after the fermentation so it would be great if somehow um this area stops talking about fermentation volume of their of their fermenters but talk about uh yield or kilograms of powders that I get after spray drying yeah I’m gonna let Rasmus tackle the first one and then I I’ll tackle the second one yeah yeah so to the first one to for for the the LCA calculations I think you don’t really know until you have a dedicated Factory which is made to produce a specific protein right because then then you have the cheapest possible uh factory set up and it’s optimized uh to be as efficient as possible then then you really know um and and the numbers we are throwing around um I think they may be off but they’re not they’re not totally wrong uh for sure but uh but it’s when we talk about milk protein at least with our strain it’s not been scaled above uh above 10,000 liters yet so um so we don’t we don’t really know um your other question uh it slipped my mind could you just repeat the first question on the protein functionality yes the functionality you know from from a 21st bio point of view that’s that’s specifically the responsibility of our customers uh we will help make the strain and the production technology they need to feedback information to us if the if the protein is not working correctly for example do you have truncation of the inter Terminus or that that changes functionality or do you have glycosilation or phosphor relations or something that are that are off um that needs to be tested and the information needs to be fed back back to us so we can make the the the the proper amendments um so we we’ve decided that we want to stay out of of the application testing uh because our Heritage from no signs tells us that that’s just a huge task and and when you’re operating across many different fields uh that’s a that’s a big and and lengthy investment um but I think all of our customers in the milk space I mean they that that’s really what they focus on uh making the proteins work uh in in different aspects of of uh formulating food products um okay so then on the question of the uh the actual kilos of output from a given volume of fermentation um I think you’re absolutely right one of the one of the reasons that we end up in this situation is because people with my gra background the fermentation Engineers if you ask them you know well how much you know what kilos of output can I get from a 200 liter fermentation what they’ll say is it depends so um I think the the the tea can help a lot with that right you can you can use that technoeconomic analysis to say okay with this metabolic pathway engineered into this microbe that grows up to this level then you can expect to get you know this range of kilos of output especially if you use our spray dryer or whatever right you can you can easily model that if you have a little bit more information about the process um but with that said I think it would behoove us as uh as an industry to start talking about kilos of output right say and in a in a typical ecoli production process that means you get x amount of protein out of it um you know with all of those caveats that every process is going to be slightly different yeah Matt I have a customer call so I I need to to hop off yes of course and I I wanted to say it feels like we’re just picking up steam but I understand we we have to end at this point so thank you very much to both of our guests here if open to it happy to make some connections so happy to facilitate and discuss on both sides to see what happens if you want keep going out of here but thank you so much everyone for your time really really appreciate it really anybody wants to talk thanks you’re welcome bye bye fantastic bye cool

21st.BIO launches new precision fermentation program to produce bovine alpha-lactalbumin

21st.BIO, a fermentation technology company, has launched a precision fermentation program for bovine alpha-lactalbumin (α-lac), a valuable whey protein found in cow and human milk. The protein is essential for cognitive and immune development and is in high demand for use in functional foods, supplements, and beverages. Currently, extraction from cow’s milk is limited, expensive, and mostly reserved for high-end infant formula. 21st.BIO’s program aims to make production more efficient, sustainable, and cost-competitive using a licensed high-yield microbial strain from Novonesis. The company plans to optimize the strain for industrial fermentation, reducing the need for large amounts of milk to produce α-lac. With traditional methods struggling to meet future demand, precision fermentation offers a complementary solution to reduce pressure on natural resources and create a more resilient supply chain. The program’s goal is to make high-purity α-lac available to a wider market, addressing the increasing global demand for milk proteins and decreasing production challenges.

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Helaina increases the production of human lactoferrin.

Helaina, a New York-based startup, has scaled up production of its precision fermented human lactoferrin (effera) to metric tons, enabling 10 million servings per production run. The company has partnered with several commercial brands, including Kroma Wellness and Levelle, to launch products containing effera. Human lactoferrin is a complex protein found in breast milk and colostrum, essential for iron balance, immune function, and gut health. Helaina’s effera is seen as a premium option, with a clinical study showing that it doesn’t produce antibodies like bovine lactoferrin. The company is targeting women’s health, active nutrition, and digestive wellness markets, with potential claims around optimizing iron utilization, healthy gut function, and immune system maintenance. Helaina has raised $83 million in equity funding and is working on new molecules and ingredients, with a focus on partnerships to drive growth and innovation. The company sees a huge opportunity in creating a new category and opportunity, rather than just replacing bovine lactoferrin.

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Vegconomist reports GEA launches $20M state-of-the-art facility for precision fermentation and cultured food innovation.

GEA has opened a new Food Application and Technology Center (ATC) in Janesville, Wisconsin, a $20 million facility focused on alternative proteins and sustainable food production technologies. The center is designed to accelerate the scale-up of novel food production methods, including precision fermentation and plant-based food processing. It features pilot-scale infrastructure and technologies such as bioreactors, thermal processing, and membrane filtration. The facility is powered entirely by renewable energy and creates skilled jobs in the region. The ATC’s opening has also supported the creation of 400-500 construction jobs and is expected to contribute to the local economy.

The center is GEA’s second global hub, following the opening of its first ATC in Hildesheim, Germany. GEA’s CEO, Stefan Klebert, stated that the center is a key milestone in helping customers scale up production of novel foods while strengthening North American operations. The facility has been praised by local officials and industry leaders, who see it as a model for innovation and sustainable food production in the Midwest and beyond. The ATC is expected to play a significant role in positioning the American Midwest at the forefront of food innovation.

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21st.BIO Launches Initiative to Develop Precise Fermentation Methods for Producing Bovine Alpha-Lactalbumin

21st.BIO has launched a development program to produce bovine alpha-lactalbumin (α-lac) using precision fermentation technology. The company has exclusively licensed a high-yield microbial strain from Novonesis, a leader in biosolutions. α-lac is a functional milk protein with benefits for immune and cognitive development, but traditional extraction from bovine milk is costly and inefficient. 21st.BIO aims to make precision-fermented α-lac competitively priced and widely available. The traditional process requires around 1,000 liters of milk to produce one kilogram of α-lac, whereas precision fermentation offers a scalable, animal-free, and cost-effective solution.

The company is working to optimize the Novonesis strain for industrial fermentation and commercialization. The initiative aims to democratize access to advanced biomanufacturing and offer a sustainable solution to the dairy industry, which is facing a projected protein supply gap by 2030. 21st.BIO’s program includes access to production-ready microbial strains, fermentation and downstream process development, and regulatory advisory services. The company believes precision fermentation can reduce pressure on natural resources, lower environmental impact, and create a more distributed and resilient supply chain.

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Eclipse Ingredients secures $7 million in funding to produce its innovative wonder protein through fermentation.

Eclipse Ingredients, a Brisbane-based biotech startup, has emerged from stealth mode with $7 million in funding to commercialize lactoferrin, a promising compound found in human breast milk and immune cells. The company uses precision fermentation to sustainably produce human-identical lactoferrin at an industrial scale. Founded by dietitian Siobhan Coster, Eclipse Ingredients aims to disrupt the global wellness and skincare markets with its breakthrough. The startup has received $2.9 million in funding from the Commonwealth Government’s Food and Beverage Accelerator (FaBA) and investment from AgFunder. With its capital-efficient model, Eclipse Ingredients plans to launch its first commercial product in 2027, starting with skincare applications. The company is also exploring commercial partnerships and has identified a pipeline of other health-beneficial ingredients to focus on next. Lactoferrin has numerous health benefits, including anti-inflammation, anti-microbial, and iron-boosting properties, making it a highly sought-after compound. With its innovative approach, Eclipse Ingredients is poised to revolutionize the production of complex functional proteins and make a significant impact in the wellness and skincare industries.

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21st.Bio initiates a precision fermentation program aimed at producing bovine alpha-lactalbumin.

Danish bioproduction company 21st.Bio has launched a development program to commercialize bovine alpha-lactalbumin (α-lac) using precision fermentation. The company has partnered with Novonesis, which has developed a high-yield microbial strain, to produce the protein. α-lac is a milk protein used in infant nutrition, functional food, and health-focused applications. Currently, producing α-lac from cow’s milk is costly and inefficient, requiring 1,000 liters of milk to yield just one kilogram of protein. 21st.Bio aims to make the protein more cost-competitive through precision fermentation, which can produce α-lac of high purity. The company’s CEO, Thomas Schmidt, believes that precision fermentation can make α-lac more efficient, sustainable, and available to a wider market. Novonesis’ SVP, Thomas Batchelor, added that the company is proud to see its strain being brought to market and is committed to helping its partners through the entire production process. The partnership aims to address the future protein supply gap and reduce pressure on natural resources.

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Valedictory Function



GIAN Course on “PRECISION FERMENTATION FOR SUSTAINABLE MANUFACTURING OF BIO-ACTIVES AND INDUSTRIAL …

spe for e e honorable dignitaries on the dice respected faculties participants and my dear friends a very good good evening to everyone present here I once again welcome you all uh to the on the behalf of the organizing committee to the validatory session of Gyan course on fermentation Precision fermentation for sustainable manufacturing of bioactives and Industrial biochemicals sponsored by Ministry of Education government of India I would like to thank you all for uh uh for joining with us for the last 5 days so let’s uh start the valary function by first of all I would like to invite Dr Vin rra M the coordinator of this Gyan course to deliver her welcome address uh welcome to today’s valid dictory function and hopefully you all enjoyed it uh we definitely uh Professor Asos definitely cover covered all the topics which were mentioned and I hope uh like uh some of you H had just joined the program just after your exams uh everybody almost everyone and some of you have traveled also from other places to join here hopefully everybody’s expectations were satisfied and 5 days I I know it was a very intense course to learn a lot of things but uh I hope it was interactive enough and I could see in the videos also that you all were participating so credit goes to you as well so hopefully you all had a comfortable time here and enjoyed the course and um I would like to thank all our professors and dignitary on the Das our H sir saisi Mishra sir Dr Varma uh they have supported us in conducting this program and uh throughout the everywhere wherever we were stuck any kind of advice whether it is technical or any other kind of advice we could go to them and ask them what to do next and they helped us so we are very grateful for that and U hopefully the the learning which you obtained here the topics which were covered anybody who is is uh targeting a startup will be able to employ them anyone who is interested in research further research you got a ground on which you can build your own projects and um hopefully starting from here on this topic at least you can go uh to other places and tell them what you learned and U build your own knowledge on this of course 5 days is not enough to have all the information about it but uh we we definitely covered most of the topics related to it and um hopefully you enjoyed the course and you will be able to use it and uh have a wonderful life enjoy wherever you go and use the knowledge which you obtained Take Care thank you thank you ma’am we extend our heartfelt gratitude to our esteemed Chief guest and the speaker for the last 5 days Dr ashitosh Singh associate professor School of Engineering University of gu Canada for traveling all the way to nit rilla and sharing his invaluable knowledge with us for over the last 5 days your thoughts have truly encouraged us and inspired us for future endeavors I would like to request you to please share your experience with us sir [Applause] see now I have the practice of moving the mic and making sure that I can speak in front of it I have no idea what to talk about like okay 5 days we I was the one who was speaking the most of the time you are the one who were listening all the time I can see people yawning at that time even I used to feel like yawning at that time but we didn’t right like we we tried we we somehow made sure that we are able to set for those long hours uh talk to each other discuss a few things uh and I am I’m really hoping that I was able to at least impart some knowledge to you I will see I cannot I cannot state that I am an expert an expert an expert expert in this area but I can definitely say the things that I know I have tried my best to tell you now you can take that and move forward in the best way possible and if you need any help and guidance uh just search for this face you’ll find me on Google connect with me and I’ll try the best I can do and thank you so much for putting me Dr Bala in the guest house that re it helped me me revisit some of my past memories when my dad was working in the col India we used to live in buildings like these and uh it was fun it’s a very beautiful campus and I’m thankful to nit for sponsoring or sorry hosting this and MH for sponsoring the Gan and I hope to come back soon if I can thank you [Applause] thank you so much sir uh now I would like to request Dr dendra Verma sir H Department of biotechnology and medical engineering and it rla to address the Gathering please sir so I believe you have a wonderful experience learning experience from this course last five days right and you learned a lot and so I request you don’t keep that knowledge with yourself you use it for for your project coursework or you know other students who might need this knowledge and so I wish um um so yeah that’s all thank you very much okay thank you sir we would greatly appreciate your feedback back on the program to help us improve in the further programs if anyone of you would like to share your experience or Thoughts with us then you welcome on the stage anyone good evening everyone I am Mani jwal from JIS University West Bengal a biotech undergrad so we are outstation students here and uh it was a wonderful experience I would like to thank my faculty teachers like it’s Dr sukanta bhatara and Dr dupa pal maam to let us know about the program I would like to thank Winnie ma’am to coordinate us on call and everything like to make our visit comfortable one I would like to thank ashutosh sir for giving us such a knowledgeable session like we are very young we have learned a lot we are going to project it out within our uh project works also so I would like to thank everyone I would and I would like to thank my Coates also I we got to learn and uh meet many new people hope to see you guys soon again working and collaborating together thank [Applause] you thank you anyone else would like to share your feedback hello all as um we um We Came as a three people from SRM Institute uh from trali campus but it was a hard long journey but we didn’t expect um this to be a fantastic event which um Ash s has made us a g valuable speech um which has given us various knowledgeable insights which we greatly enjoyed especially today which we have had many interesting topics with interesting discussions actually and uh I thank Ash sir for giving this uh wonderful speech I don’t know whether I could have learned this much better from any other people thank [Applause] you anyone from an it or outside anyone yeah yes please um hello everyone good evening to everyone I am churi from jic University a second year student uh of BC biotechnology uh I am great really grateful for this opportunity to get such a great um platform to come over here I would like to thanks uh to my faculties of my college uh Dr dupa pal M and shuku sir I would like to thank Vinnie ma too for guiding us a lot and it was a really um informative workshop and thanks to Ash sir too for uh letting us know a lot about this uh precision and fermentation and thank you anyone else who would like to share your feedback lot of yeah come uh very good good evening everyone uh my name is Ash goswami uh I’m from the mtech first year from Department of biotechnology and medical engineering so uh the this long five day course work was really a very olling entertaining as well as insightful Journey for me to experience experience a whole new way how we can like develop something out of uh the already existing knowledge that to present the way uh sudas sir has uh like um the imparted his knowledge how we we implemented through the case studies it was very very uh knowledgeable and very um what I have to say like we really enjoyed it a lot we gathered a a lot of experience while searching different research papers while U like presenting our presentations regarding the 2K studies he provided and also the way the whole U conference was um organized uh great I have to like we have to thank winie M for coordinating and all other faculties who supported this J uh of course um system of imparting Education as well as all other um those all other uh members who like organized this so beautifully and I also I also want to thank all those who participated here because they also give us so much knowledge as a team when we worked uh here to present our like uh ideas regarding the case studies he has given like we really got so much knowledge from each of the members each team that presented the ideas we are really grateful for that and we will really try our best to like utilize the knowledge that we have got through this course work as well as from the from through sir as well as from other members uh have for projects for the upcoming projects we had mtech as well as in the future thank you everyone thank you all [Applause] so Mega and manvi want to thank uh together once again so let’s we forgot about our team the bluff team yes thank you so much thank you so much Bo shali thank you so and we wanted to thank our parents as well to as it’s our first out outstation work if they wouldn’t have allowed us we would be able to be here so they are not here but if it’s recorded we’ll be showing it to them that we would like to thank their whole Thanks goes to our parents thank you thank you anyone else who want to give feedback otherwise we’ll proceed forward okay thank you guys for your feedback it was very necessary for us us uh now I would like to request Dr saachi Mishra sir head of the Department of food process engineering and it Raa to address the Gathering please sir uh hello everyone Dr Singh Dr BMA winni Professor Bala and my colleagues students and faculty members uh I hope you enjoy the whole of five days I was following all the videos YouTube videos I started with like you know checking what actually director said on that day yeah so uh it was nice actually having Gan course in the department it’s not only for like you know teaching learning but it’s a like you know resource generation the videos that are being made through Professor Singh will be available for everyone and this is a real great initiative by the Ministry of Education uh to have collaboration between foreign dignitaries and experts with Indian academicians and I hope we will have many such programs in the department and the administration as already promised uh will be there for everything uh Professor Verma was not there um this is actually like you know really nice initiative by both the Departments like interdisciplinary collaborative approach on Gans Park and so many uh projects are still going on and Professor Bala thank you uh Professor Bala and me in involved like you know so many things in the Institute every now and then this meeting or that meeting we always there together and in this also program I think being a senior faculty member of the in Institute must have supported Winnie very well thank you and I wish uh I’ll see you again for some other program and probably if there is I I got so much of good feedback about Professor sings uh lectures and everything uh so probably we can invite him one more time right right so all the best thank [Applause] you cic thank you sir now I would like to request H ODS Dr saachi Mishra sir and Dr dendra VMA sir to please give away the certificates to our participants so I’ll call your names please come one by one to receive your certificates Mr sarin from SRM University I request the next candidate to be ready uh so that uh they can come we can have this quickly Mr swapnil Kuna Mr ashwat Vishnu Miss manvi jwal Miss Mega Chri Mr adash Singh Mr Arash Singh Mr krishn samant Mr subit Mr kishan kishor Gupta Mr Sor of gar Mr thejan Das Miss Alma p Mr singur Rajesh m r Mr raviraj nandkumar patil Miss Rashmi Pratap Singh Mr ashitosh goswami Mr abishek chasia Mr abishek chasia Miss Pari Kiran sahu Miss s karika Mr sash sahu Mr Ashish Kumar Kamar Mr coboro Dr akib shik Miss kosela V Mr Vishal Kumar Mr saaj guli Mr nikil Chandra Mr adya [Music] kashia Miss Bali Miss shanki party [Applause] word of thanks now I request Dr Bala subam sir coordinator of this Gan to propose the V of thanks uh professor professor Sai Prof dendra professor vinni and all other faculty colleagues from both the department food process engineering and Department of biotch and medical engineering yeah warm as well as very good evening to and all I I can understand that everyone would like to go out I can able to understand your mindset but bear with me for another two minutes because like it will be a very lengthy list of names that I have to read out to say thanks okay it may not be possible for me to read each and everyone but I would like to say thanks to our Institute director Professor Umar ra okay our Institute Gan coordinator Professor sisir Kumar sahu as well as Professor Rohan register Professor sades Kumar PR from St office anel uh profess rakas for allocating this PBA Auditorium like the list will be keep going okay I I don’t want to go well beyond that okay I would like to even thank uh Professor AOS for readily accepting this invitation and joined us for this Fray course whatever that we are going to handle in the entire semester he has been skus in and tried to handle within very less span of time uh from your feedback also I could able to understand that the course was really informative okay and it it can put us back into a kind of lifelong learning okay so which is a pursuit of knowledge that we are going to think forward through that we could able to think about our yearning also in future so that that is the bigest hope that he has been given to all of us uh through this 5day course I very really happy for that okay even I would like to thank Professor V also for extending uh or joining hands on this program okay I may forget student coordinators individual names okay but from both the department are like at least in the research groups who are being working day and night and coordinating the entire event very smoothly okay so I would like to say big thanks to one and all thank you thank you very much second um he has thank a lot of people but I definitely need to thank the audio visual people thank you so much sir for making me footage I remember that word but thank you thank you sir I would like to thank each and everyone on and off the stage for your valuable presence and now I would like to request everyone to please stand up for national anthem [Music] PAB guat marata [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] V [Music] he he now we have come to the end of the celebration and uh the Gan program so I would like to request everyone to stay here for 5 minutes we’ll have a group photo then you can join us for he te arranged outside thank you for

21st.BIO introduces a precision fermentation initiative to produce bovine alpha-lactalbumin with enhanced accuracy.

21st.BIO, a leading technology partner in precision fermentation, has launched a development program for bovine alpha-lactalbumin (α-lac) after exclusively licensing a high-yield microbial strain from Novonesis. α-lac is a highly functional milk protein rich in essential amino acids, currently used in infant nutrition, functional food, and health-focused applications. The traditional method of extracting α-lac from cow’s milk is costly and inefficient, making it one of the most expensive dairy proteins on the market. 21st.BIO’s precision fermentation technology offers a scalable, animal-free solution, enabling companies to produce α-lac at a lower cost and with higher purity. The company is working with customers to develop industrial-scale production, providing access to production-ready microbial strains, tailored fermentation and downstream process development, and regulatory advisory services. With the global demand for dairy proteins expected to outpace supply by 2030, 21st.BIO’s technology aims to bridge the protein supply gap, reducing pressure on natural resources and creating a more resilient supply chain. The company’s mission is to make precision fermentation technology accessible to companies, supporting the development of innovative biotech products at a competitive price.

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The Precision Fermentation Ingredients Market is anticipated to experience rapid growth, surging from USD 1.2 Billion to USD 38.02 Billion by 2032.

The precision fermentation ingredients market is projected to grow at a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 43.5% from 2025 to 2032, reaching a market valuation of $38.02 billion by 2032. This growth is driven by the increasing demand for sustainable and environmentally friendly food production methods, as well as the rising adoption of vegan diets and alternative protein sources. The global population is expected to reach 10 billion by 2050, creating a need for innovative and sustainable food production solutions. Precision fermentation technology uses microorganisms such as yeast and bacteria to produce proteins, enzymes, and other functional compounds, offering a scalable and sustainable alternative to traditional animal-derived ingredients. The market is dominated by the whey and casein protein segment, with the egg white segment expected to register the highest growth rate during the forecast period. North America leads the market, with Asia-Pacific expected to demonstrate the fastest growth potential. Key players in the market include Perfect Day, Inc., Impossible Foods Inc., and Geltor, Inc.

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Dairy technology progresses from concept to creating nutritional milk supplements

A team led by Professor Esteban Marcellin at The University of Queensland has successfully produced dairy proteins using precision fermentation, a process similar to beer fermentation. The technology has been transferred to industry partner All G, a Sydney-based company, to develop a milk supplement. The team used custom-built bioreactors to carefully manage the fermentation process, allowing for precise control over oxygen uptake, pH levels, and growth conditions. This enabled them to improve growth rates and control by-products. The technology transfer from the lab to All G’s manufacturing environment involved scaling up the fermentation process to suit larger production units. All G’s Chief Technology Officer, Dr Guillaume Barbier, said the partnership with FaBA has allowed them to develop dairy products using new technology that is good for people and the planet. The project was supported by the Australian Government Department of Education through the Trailblazer Universities Program. The collaboration is a step closer to commercializing dairy products made using precision fermentation, which is an emerging industry for the future of dairy products.

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Presentasi Kimia Bahan Makanan : Precision Fermentation



Kelompok 1 Pendidikan Kimia 1. Maradistha Cheva 2. M Ilham Luqmanoel H 3. Naura Ismatina 4. Sinta Nurrohim 5. Sulistya …

Bismillahirrahmanirrahim asalamualaikum warahmatullahi wabarakatuh Kami dari kelompok 1 eh dari mata kuliah kimia bahan makanan kelas 5A Pendidikan Kimia akan mempresentasikan mengenai precision fermentation atau fermentasi presisi di mana Eh terdiri dari Saya sendiri maradis sebatriawan sebagai moderator dan juga teman-teman saya rekan-rekan saya itu ada M Ilham lmanul Hakim Naura ismatina sintanurahim dan juga su Setia Munawarah Nah untuk materi yang pertama yaitu mengenai pengertian dan juga prinsip kerja atau cara kerjanya yang akan dibahas langsung oleh Naura ismatina kepadanya disilakan Baik terima kasih kepada moderator untuk yang pertama yaitu mengenai pengertian dan prinsip kerja dari fermentasi presisi pengertian fermentasi presisi sendiri adalah istilah yang dijelaskan oleh eh dua asosiasi perdagangan yaitu precision fermentation Alliance atau yang singkat pfa dan food fermentation Europe atau FF yang tujuannya adalah membantu pelaku industri regulator dan konsumen memahami konsep ini terutama Bagaimana fermentasi presisi yang berbeda dari metode Fermentasi yang lainnya nah menurut definisi sendiri fermentasi presisi merupakan kombinasi fermentasiad tradisional dengan teknologi bioteknologi modern untuk menghasilkan senyawa tertentu secara efisien senyawa ini bisa berupa protein molekul perasa vitamin pigmen ataupun lemak Nah untuk cara kerjanya sendiri dari fermentasi presisi yaitu dalam fermentasi presisi mikroorganisme dimodifikasi dengan memasukkan urutan molekul tertentu yang berfungsi sebagai instruksi untuk memproduksi senyawa yang diinginkan selama fermentasi urutan molekul ini berasal dari basis data digital yang bukan dari sumber alami seperti hewan dan atau tumbuhan setelah proses fermentasi selesai senyawa yang dihasilkan dipisakan dari mikroorganisme melalui penyaringan teknologi ini sebenarnya telah dilakukan selama lebih dari 30 tahun untuk memproduksi obat-obatan contohnya insulin dan bahan pangan umum seperti renet atau oligosakarida susu manusia meskipun istilah fermentasi presisi baru muncul pada9 menalui ratings X penggunaannya sudah lama diterapkan misalnya dalam produksi simosin enzim yang sebelumnya diperoleh dari perut anak sapi namun kini dihasilkan oleh mikroorganisme hasil rekayasa genetik kemajuan dalam biologi sintestis terutama dalam pengurutan dan sintetis DNA telah mendorong banyak perusahaan startup untuk memproduksi berbagai senyawa bernilai tinggi produk ini meliputi pemanis pewarna perasa protein susu kolagen hingga komponen dalam Asim manusia yang ditunjukkan untuk meningkatkan nutrisi susu pada formula baik baik mungkin e Cukup sekian penjelasan dari saya saya kembalikan kepadaar Baik terima kasih naur atas penyampaiannya selanjutnya ituu mengenai aplikasinya yang akan dijelaskan oleh Sinta kepada Sinta disilakan Baik terima kasih kepada moderator jadi fermentasiis memiki yang luas dalam industri pangan terutama dalam menciptakan produk yang lebih berkelanjutan efisien dan bernutrisi terus di sini tu ada beberapa aspek penting dari aplikasi fermentasi presisi dalam industri pangan nah yang pertama itu ada eh produksi protein alternatif nah fermentasi presis Ini itu memungkinkan produksi protein alternatif yang identik dengan produk hewani mikroorganisme yang direkayasa dapat menghasilkan protein susu dan daging tanpa memerlukan eh hewan yang mengurangi dampak lingkungan dari peternakan tradisional contohnya tuh perusahaan seperti formo yang memproduksi protein susu bebas hewani dan eh nouris ingredien yang menciptakan lemak nabati untuk meningkatkan rasa dan tekstur produk berbasis tanaman Kemudian yang kedua ada peningkatan nilai gizi nah proses fermentasi Ini tuh dapat meningkatkan eh ketersediaan gizi dalam produk pangan misalnya eh fermentasi pada tempe dapat memperkayaan dengan vitamin B12 sedangkan produk seperti yogur dan kevir mengandung probiotik yang yang mendukung kesehatan pencernaan nah fermentasi presisi juga memungkinkan pembuatan protein dengan sifat E hipoalergenik dan stabilitas yang lebih baik sesuai dengan eh permintaan konsumen akan produk sehat Nah kemudian yang ketiga ada inovasi dalam rasa dan tekstur fermentasi presisi ini tuh mampu menciptakan cita rasa dan tekstur unik ee yang dapat tercapai dengan metode pengolahan lainnya produk seperti keju dan roti sodog merupakan contoh hasil perermentasi yang sangat diminti karena eh karakteristik rasanya yang khas nah teknologi ini tuh e memberikan peluang bagi eh pelaku usaha untuk menciptakan diferensiasi produk di pasaran gitu kemudian yang keempat eh slide selanjutnya yang keempat ada keberlanjutan dan efisiensi nah fermentasi bersih ini itu berkontribusi pada keberlanjutan dengan mengurangi penggunaan lahan air dan emisi gas rumah kaca yang terkait dengan peternakan konvensional Nah dengan memproduksi makanan secara lokal menggunakan mikroorganisme si jejak karbon dari transportasi juga dapatimalkan kemudian yang kelima ada penggunaan teknologi modern nah teknologi fermentasi modern termasuk eh bioreaktor otomatis memungkinkan kontrol yang lebih baik terhadap ee proses fermentasinya nah hal ini itu memastikan konsistensi kualitas produk eh dan efisiensi produksi Nah dengan pengawasan otomatis terhadap parameter seperti suhu dan PH proses fermentasi juga menjadi lebih terstandarisasi mungkin Sekian dari saya saya kembalikan kepada moderator Baik terima kasih kepada Sinta atas penyampaiannya selanjutnya itu mengenai manfaat dari permentasi presisi yang akan dijelaskan oleh kepada disilakan Baik terima kasih kepada moderator di sini saya akan menjelaskan sedikit manfaat dari permentasi presisi Yang di mana Yang pertama ada meningkatkan kualitas produkmentasi presisi ini dapat menghasilkan senyawa yang bernilai tinggi dengan kistensi danisih dapat meningkatkan kualitas produk lalu yang kedua ada mengurangi dampak lingkungan yang di mana fermentasi presisi dapat mengurangi dampak lingkungan dari produksi pangan dan biofarmasi karena memerlukan lebih sedikit sumber daya lalu yang ketiga itu memproduksi protein alternatif yang di mana fermentasi presisi dapat digunakan untuk memproduksi protein enzim molekul rasa vitamin pigmen dan lemak tertentu secara efisien lalu untuk keempat yaitu memproduksi terapi baru memproduksi terapi baru yang di mana fermentasi presisi ini dapat digunakan untuk menghasilkan terapi baru seperti biologi vaksin dan trapigigen lalu yang kelima ini ada memproduksi makanan secara lokal yang di mana fermentasi presisi memungkinkan negara-negara kecil dan daerah perkotaan untuk memproduksi makanan yang lebih padat nutrisi secara lokal lalu yang keenam memproduksi makanan tanpa hewan yang di mana maksud dari sini adalah fermentasi presisi menyediakan cara untuk menciptakan protein hewani tanpa hewan lalu yang ketujuh Ini meningkatkan efisiensi dan produksi nah perasi presisi dapat membantu meningkatkan efisiensi dan juga produksi lalu yang kedelap yaitu memilihin yang menghasilkan metabolit spesifik nah fermentasi presisi ini dapat membantu memilih strain yang menghasilkan metabolit spesifik untuk profil rasa atau tekstur yang lebih kompleksitu yang dapat sikan saya kembalikan kepada moderator Baik terima terima kasih Sulis atas penyampaiannya selanjutnya itu mengenai dampak dari fermentasi presisi Adapun dampak positif dan juga negatifnya akan dijelaskan oleh Ilham kepada Ilham disilakan oke eh di sini ada dampaknya dari fermentasi presisi ada dua ada dampak negatif dan juga ada eh dampak positifnya nah dampak positif dari fermentasi presisi Ini pertama itu produk yang dihasilkan akan lebih efisien gitu yang kedua pengurangan jejak karbon yang ketiga keberlanjutan sumber daya yang keempat produksi bahan langka secara mal yang kelima Kean pangan lebih tinggi nah Adapun dampak negatifnya itu isu etika terkait rekayasa genetika dari fermentasi itu sendiri lalu adanya potensi dampak negatif pada petani dan peternak tradisional Lal ada biaya awal yang tinggi dan yang keempat itu risiko homogenitas biologis yangagan berkangit yang tantangan reguli dan jangka mungkinupkiak sampan Terima kasih saya ke mod Baik terima kasih pen nah eh dapat kita jadi ada beberapa perusahaan teknologi itu yang mengola makanan besar yang menggunakan eh dengan fermentasi presisi jadi ada tiga ada perfect Dayar dan juga Impossible foods nah di mana pada Perfect Day ini perusahaan teknologi pangan ini tuh memproduksi eh protein susu bebas hewani menggunakan fermentasi presisi di mana perusahaan ini tuh menggunakan proses fermentasi untuk memproduksi Wei dan juga kasinnya nah dua protein yang ditemukan dalam susu protein yang diproduksi oleh perfekd ini diproduksi tanpa menggunakan hewan Teknik ini lebih berkelanjutan daripada peternakan hewan tradisional dan juga menghilangkan Riko penyakit bawaan makanan yang terkait dengan produk hewani ini keterkaitannya juga ada sama yang tadi disebutkan oleh manfaatnya dari fermentasi presisi itu Nah yang kedua itu ada kelarakur Di mana perusahaan ini tuh memproduksi putih telur bebas hewan menggunakan fermentasi presisi nah perusahaan ini tuh menggunakan proses fermentasi untuk menghasilkan protein yang identik ee dengan protein yang ditemukan dalam telur ayam nah protein ini juga dapat digunakan dalam berbagai produk makanan termasuk makanan panggang dan juga mayones nah yang terakhir yaitu ada Impossible foods Di mana perusahaan ini itu memproduksi alternatif daging berbahan dasar tumbuhan nah mereka ini tuh menggunakan fermentasi persisi ini untuk menghasilkan Hema atau molekul yang ditemukan dalam darah hewan yang memberikan rasa khas pada daging nah perusahaan ini juga menggunakan eh ragi yang dimodifikasi secara genetik untuk menghasilkan hem yang mereka gunakan dalam burger berbahan dasar tumbuhan dan juga produk-produk lainnya ee Mungkin cukup dari studi kasus yang saya sampaikan selanjutnya yaitu mengenai perbandingan dengan teknologi lainnya antara fermentasi presisi dan juga teknologi lainnya yang akan dijelaskan oleh Sulis kepada Sulis disilakan Baik terima kasih kepada moderator di sini saya akan sedikit menyampaikan mengenai perbandingan fermentasipresisi teknologi lainnya nah yang pertama di sini ada fermentasi presisi terlebih dahulu yang di mana fermentasi presisi adalah penggunaan mikroorganisme yang direkayasa secara genetik sebagai starter untuk produk molekul target melalui fermentasi nah fermentasi presisi ini semakin banyak digunakan untuk pembuatan berbagai bahan makanan yang secara konvensional bersumber dari hewan dan tuumbuhan contoh produk tersebut meliputi protein way oleh per produksi gatin vanili kunyit dan glikosida teviol oleh evolvgel dan laktoferin ASI oleh konag Nah yang kedua di sini ada fermentasi tradisional yang di mana meningkatnya minat terhadap makanan fermentasi setelah menyebabkan popularisasi dan komersialisasi produk fermentasi tradisional seperti kevir dan kombuca di luar daerah asal mereka dengan perluasan pasar yang cepat fermentasi tradisional adalah proses fermentasi yang dilakukan secara manual dan tidak terkendali selanjutnya eh selanjutnya di sini ada fermentasi bat yang di mana fermentasi bat adalah proses fermentasi yang dilakukan dalam jumlah besar dan tidak kontinu seperti produksi bir pembuatan keju produksi yogur dan pembuatan tempe yang di mana produksi bir dengan fermentasi gandum ber dan hop selama 7 sampai 14 hari terus pembuatan keju dengan fermentasi susu selama 30 sampai 60 hari produksi yogurt dengan fermentasi susu selama 4 sampai 8 jam dan pembuatan tempe dengan fermentasi kedelai selama 24 sampai 48 jam lalu di sini yang terakhir ada fermentasi semi kontinu yang di mana fermentasi semiontinu adalah proses fermentasi yang dilakukan secara dengan penambahan substrat dan pengambilan produk secara berkala contohnya di sini pada produksi yogurt yang di mana asi susu selama 4 sampai 8 jam kemudian sebagian produk diambil dan digantikan oleh susu baru baik sekian yang dapat saya sampaikan saya kembalikan kepada moderator terima Oke terima kasih kepadais atas penyampaiannya kurang lebih e yang dapat kami sampaikan dari kelompok s e Cukup sekian terima kasih atas perhatiannya kurang lebihnya mau dimafkan asalamualaikum warahmatullahi wabarakatuh

Cellular agriculture and advanced biotechnology for food production | Ensuring safety and quality in food systems | United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization

The Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) is exploring cell-based food production and precision fermentation to address growing global demand for proteins and nutrients. Cell-based food production involves using animal, plant, or microbial cells to create food products, while precision fermentation uses microorganisms to produce specific target products. The FAO is working with stakeholders to advance knowledge and develop regulatory frameworks to ensure food safety. A stakeholder meeting in Canada and an informal technical working group (TWG) with 34 countries and the EU are discussing food safety aspects of cell-based food production and precision fermentation.

The FAO has published reports on precision fermentation and cell-based food, including a literature synthesis and a guide for food safety authorities. The reports examine nomenclature, production principles, and regulatory frameworks, and provide good practices and lessons learned. The FAO and WHO have also launched a publication on food safety aspects of cell-based food, which includes a comprehensive hazard identification and case studies from various countries. The FAO is continuing to facilitate discussions and knowledge sharing to support the development of safe and sustainable food production systems.

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Day4-PRECISION FERMENTATION FOR SUSTAINABLE MANUFACTURING OF BIO-ACTIVES AND INDUSTRIAL BIOCHEMICALS



Day 4 | GIAN Course on “PRECISION FERMENTATION FOR SUSTAINABLE MANUFACTURING OF BIO-ACTIVES AND …

good morning everyone so yesterday we did discuss about the batch design and the FED batch design do you have any questions with respect to that no okay so in today’s session we are going to discuss about the Heat and mass transfer in a bioreactor and we are also going to discuss about the scale up of Biore reactors because you always start small at lab scale then you increase the volume and then slowly you move it on to your large scale for Mentor or the industrial skill for Mentor so we’ll start our conversation today with uh Mass transfer in bi reactors but before that I wanted to set up the base with respect to some of the basics of heat and mass transfer okay now let’s start with heat transfer I’m hoping all of you have had courses in heat transfer how many modes of heat transfer exist there are three modes so you have your conduction convection and radiation radiation is do you think sorry so do you think radiation would be applicable in bi reactors not to a greater extent the most important would be the conductions and the convection so conduction we do have the equation which is your fixed law where your K is your conductivity the a is your cross sectional area right so this is your cross sectional area and then you have your temperature gradient DT by DX in in case of your convection it is h a delta T where your H is your convective heat transfer coefficient the notation might change from textbook to textbook but H is the most common notification that I have always seen so H is your convective heat transfer coefficient the area in case of convection is cross-sectional or the surface it’s a surface area and again the temperature will be the temperature difference now keeping these These are the the most basic right and after this we get into the governing equation where you have your Inus out plus generation is equal to accumulation right so the accumulation term for the uh is always given as DT by DX is it accumulation is with respect to time right so that’s why when a steady state scenario you don’t consider the accumulation because there is no change in temperature with respect to time in practical sense do we use steady state scenarios or non-steady state scenarios or unsteady State scenarios it’s mostly unsteady State because the temperature is going to change with respect to time even in bioreactors when you’re going to work with the bioreactors what are the source of heat in the bioreactor the organisms are one source of heat right because as they are multiplying as they are going to grow their metabolic engineering sorry metabolic mechanism is working that is going to generate some amount of heat right so that is your generation that gets added in the Govern equation if you remember for your heat transfer what else is there with respect to your heat what adds the heat mixing right vegitation that will add a little bit of heat do you think the amount the amount of heat that is added through the biochemical process that mean the growth of the microorganism or through agitation is it very significant the delta T is that very significant in uh in case of a bi reactor it’s not very significant you’re right it’s not very very significant but it is still it still exist even a small variation in temperature can ruin your whole by reaction so it is very very important to understand how the reaction uh is moving forward how much of heat is generated from the biochemical process that means from the cell growth how much heat is being added through the agitation and how much heat you are adding to the system heat from external sources is most mostly used to maintain the temperature the optimum temperature that is required for the cell growth or for the fermentation process and it’s also used for sterilization so you can use the steam sterilization to clean your bi reactor at one point of time right so even that’s one way of transferring the heat but that is not when you have your material inside you don’t put the steam because otherwise you’re going to kill all your microbes so that’s the basics of heat transfer sorry before I move on to the mass transfer which of the mode of heat transfer is prominent in a bioreactor convection or conduction convection right so You’ be dealing with surface area majority of the times you’ll be dealing with surface area you’re going to see equations such as u a DT where your U is universal heat transfer coefficient a is your surface area of the inside of your Biore reactor and the DT would be the temperature gradient similarly you have mass transfer so what are the different modes of mass transfer diffusion and have you heard of the term dispersion dispersion is when you have I call it forced diffusion and then you have your convection so you have your diffusion which is your d d is the alphabet which is used to denote diffusivity so da a DC by DX but it’s always like D A to B DC by DX where your X is the distance that it has diffused the DC is a change in the concentration or the concentration difference a is your area but generally when we are working with mass we always work with flux so when we say flux is per unit area we go for that so that’s why you will see D DC by DX because a would have gone onto side of the flow to give you the flux so in case of heat let’s say it’s minus k a DT by DX Q by a Q dot is your flux heat flow per unit area is going to be your flux so mass flow per unit area is going to give you your flux so when we are working with Biore reactors we are working with flux the dispersion is given as e even that equation looks the same so e a DC by DX or E DC by DX this would be for your dispersion this would be for your diffusion the negative sign is going to say from higher concentration to the lower concentration for the heat the negative sign is from higher temperature to the lower temperature the other is h m a DC or Delta C where your hm is your convective mass transfer coefficient now for this h on your conduct on your heat transfer side that is your convective heat transfer coefficient the the HM which is convective mass transfer coefficient if I do provide you that information if I provide you with the HM value or the H value you’re okay to solve any type of scenario with respect to convection if you are not provided with the H value how do you estimate it you use equations for nles number right which is a function of renold’s number and panal number same thing in Mass transfer nles number is called as sharewood number which is a function of renold’s number and Schmid number this is the most important concept that you would be applying in heat and mass transfer in by reactor your ral’s number the ral’s number is given as U which is your velocity D that would be the distance right Row the density divided by the viscosity right now U the velocity of what use the velocity of what of the fluid right so U is the velocity of the fluid D is a distance at which you are trying to estimate your mass transfer or heat transfer so or the sorry the type of flow that you have whether it is going to be what sort of flows can R number tell you whether it is laminar or turbulent what what sort of float do you assume will be existing inside a Biore reactor you have your agitator moving so you’re going to have mostly turbulent the regular standing fan that we keep in summer in front of our face it’s like sturing air right is basically generating turbulence and it’s trying to push that turbulence towards you you have so that’s why it’s a because a turbulent flow you will feel Air at one point of time and then suddenly it goes away and then again you feel a gust of air on your face that’s a turbulency because it’s coming in bursts to you D sorry the road the density is also very important that’s also of the fluid the V is also of the fluid so fluid properties are important the fluid properties are very very important if you are trying to estimate your renals number now the renal number are required to estimate your sharewood number or your nles number which are part of your heat and mass transfer respectively sorry sharewood number is mass transfer nles number is heat transfer you have to have an understanding of the fluid properties so when we talk about the fluid properties what are those properties the viscosity the density you need to know all of those parameters before you go and start doing the calculations right so estimating those is also an important parameter in terms of assessing the values for your heat and mass transfer the other part is your planet number and Schmid number your planet number depends on what if you have the mic if you can answer in that that would be great the panel number would be dependent on is it is it for the fluid is it based for on the geometry okay do you remember a term called as Alpha which is your diffusivity what is the equation for Alpha I’m so sorry for putting you at the spot but do you remember you have your k k over row CP so your density of the material the CP is your heat capacity of the material K is your conductivity of the material does this Alpha has to do anything with PR the planet number you have your phone you can check what is the equation for Planet number if I remember correctly is p r a n D LT parel number V row VY row that is ktic is kemetic viscosity by density where is Alpha now where in the numerator or denominator what about number so your parate number is Chic viscosity divided by diffusivity heat what it spint number okay so what’s the value for spint number see I learned while teaching my students undergrads there that the best way because you all are so inclined towards your own technology to make you do the work that I’m supposed to do that is finding it so give me the value of of speci number V by D so V by dtic viscosity by diffusivity diffusivity diffusivity right is the density term there at all if Will convert it is the density if you will convert mu upon r r d okay kynetic viscosity will be converted to Dynamic this m upon Row D right so that’s your Smith number now the row the D the D is the diffusivity is a property of the fluid of the material through which your mass so whatever material sorry if a is diffusing right it is diffusing through with it is a fluid or any material is a property of the material right we talk about the diffusivity of a membrane it’s a property of the of the material so the material property comes into picture when we are working with SMI number and Planet number renal number provides you the fluid properties that’s why these two are very very important and we are going to use them when we get into the Heat and mass transfer proper discussion about of the Heat and mass transfer in the bi reactor so I hope this basic refresh of your heat and mass transfer concept are helpful later on okay so Mass transfer in bioreactor so mass is transferred under the influence of concentration gradient Mass can only move from a higher concentration region to a lower concentration region in case of a bioreactor gas liquid mass transfer is extremely important because in a bioreactor you’re looking at Mass transfer specifically the one that you are mostly interested about is your oxygen which you are sparging so when you’re sparging Air at the bottom of the bio reactor it is going to throw bubbles in the bioreactor in the medium and the mass transfer that means oxygen coming out from the gas molecule where it is in higher concentration into the medium where it is in lower concentration and then to the cells that transfers that’s it’s a two- stage transfer so you have your gas bubble so let’s say these are your cells here so your oxygen is going to come out of the gas bubble into the medium and then from The Medium it is going to go to your cells now if it is a small single cell the mass transfer would be different if it is a cluster of cells the mass transfer is going to be different so the type of host that you use the way they grow or the way you are mixing it how homogeneous your medium is inside is going to determine how much of mass transfer of oxygen is going to take place so this oxygen coming out of the gas bubble if you remember there were two terms that we came across yesterday one was OTR and O Ur OTR was oxygen transfer rate right and this was oxygen uptake so OTR is basically your this stage o are is this stage where the oxygen is being uptick by the cells to grow clear okay so in an anerobic process oxygen must first be transferred from gas bulk through a series sorry in an aerobic process not an aerobic an aerobic process you don’t transfer in oxygen you should have stopped me if I made a mistake in an aerobic process oxygen must first be transferred from gas bulk through a series of steps onto the surface of the cell this is your step so you have spared the oxygen so you have your reactor you have your Sparger it’s giving out the bubbles here as the bubbles are moving up in the medium medium they’re going to release their oxygen into the medium the solubility of oxygen within broth is actually very very poor we did talk about that because you’re trying to dissolve oxygen in the liquid that’s where the concept of Henry’s constant comes into picture now temperature plays a very important role in determining how much of gas is dissolved within a liquid the pressure also plays a very important control in determining how much of gas is dissolved in a liquid correct now let’s have a very quick conversation about this Henry’s constant what would be the best example in your day-to-day life of hen’s constant soda can you have carbon dioxide dissolve D in the soda or like in the liquid right so when you open it you hear that noise right so that’s like it’s under pressure within that pressure the the carbon dioxide is dissolved but the moment you open you will see that FY bubbles coming up so that means that your carbon dioxide is coming up the other would be uh we call it diverse Bend so if you do a deep sea diving you go pretty quick inside the pressure of the water is pretty high on you the nitrogen gets dissolved in your blood and if you come up very very quickly that nitrogen the pressure has been released on the body that nitrogen will become bubble and will stop the blood flow it can kill you okay so this is what happens the other part would be when you are moving from uh let’s say from an it you’re going all the way to Himalayas when you go up the mountain you feel that oxygen is less in the air is it that the concentration of oxygen in the air is Al itself less or less oxygen is dissolving in your blood it’s less oxygen which is dissolving the blood will the concentration of oxygen change from ground surface onto the mountain top or the air will have constant concentration of oxygen throughout that’s the question that I ask my undergraduate students every time it’s a homework think about it it it’s a pretty good uh it’s an interesting topic is basically the amount of oxygen that is dissolving in your blood is less when you go on a higher altitude because of the pressure difference so enhancement of gas liquid mass transfer during aerobic fermentation is priority if you’re working on aerobic fermentation because oxygen is required for your cells to grow and to flourish you have to make sure that you are able to transfer the oxygen in appropriate amount that is required by the micro orms for their growth if you’re not able to provide that you’re going to see sell that okay so you’re going to see sell that if there is the oxygen is not about sorry so whenever the light goes off it breaks the continuity of the thought oxygen transfer is very very important in BIO process you have to make sure that you are providing appropriate amount of oxygen so that means the am the OU cannot be less than OTR can it be oh sorry o cannot be more than OT so oxygen uptake rate is higher OTR is less you won’t have any Oxygen for the uptake anymore right it’s the other way around I will say things which will be other way around just to check whether you’re listening to me or not and if you not saying yes that means you are just agreeing to everything I am saying think use your brain okay now mode of mass transfer which is common in a bio reactor is molecular diffusion so movement of molecules under the influence of concentration gradient is what is used for with respect to the diffusion now continuous diffusion that means supplying material to the high concentration region and removing it from the low concentration region is possible right if you continuously provide the if you maintain that concentration gradient you can maintain continuous diffusion process so if you maintain that OTR at a very high level your Ur will remain if you don’t have that OTR you cannot have your o you won’t have any Oxygen for to be taken by the by the microbes now continuous diffusion is exploited for Mass transfer operations in bioreactor the fixed law of diffusion which we already discussed is basically used in terms of estimating the amount of mass that has been transferred so you do need to know the diffusivity the concentration gradient and the distance through which it is diffusing through now mixing as we have already discussed in the very first slide when we were having conversation about the mass transfer is a very very important uh unit operation you can say in a bi reactor so mixing that means turbulence INF fluids produce bulk mixing to a Max up to the smallest edies formation so when you are having your agitation taking place you’re going to have small edies which will get generated you know what the edies are Ed is like a Vortex right they are very small vortexes which will form and those vortexes allow a very nice mixing ground it’s like have you ever seen a movie called twister no if you get a chance there is an new movie called twister watch it it’s really interesting or have you seen a tornado on TV it’s moving very very fast so it’s actually mixing everything just think about that at a very microscopic scale taking place inside the Biore reactor in an Eddie if you are in that particular Eddie what is going to happen your mixing is pretty quick so oxygen and the cell if the if you have the gas bubble up there and you have the cell also up there the oxygen transfer would be faster so within the small cies flow is largely streamline so that the further mixing must occur for diffusion of fluid components mixing on a molecular scale therefore completely relies on diffusion as the final step in the mixing process yes edes are there but diffusion is the main parameter through which the mass is transferred now Mass transfer between phases occurs often in biopress so in the case of your your gas bubble moving through let’s say a liquid media if I give you a column and I’m sparging oxygen from the bottom let’s say so the bubbles will move up right and this particular column is filled with water the bubble is going to move up from bottom it is going to move up what will happen to the size of the bubble will it increase decrease if decrease y if increase y if you have a fish tank at home or or an aquarium close your eyes remember how how the the bubble is moving up in the aquarium it remains in the same size or it increases in size or decreases in size it increases in size as it goes up right why because of pressure keeps on decreasing right from the depth and by the moment it has touched up it has become bigger now oxygen transform from gas bubbles to the fermentation broth will also follow the same principle that’s why when you’re sparging oxygen the design of the Sparger plays a very very important role you don’t want smaller or bigger bubble like you don’t want bigger bubbles to go through the medium you want very small bubbles because very small bubbles can be uniformly distributed and homogeneously mixed so you have to make sure that when it is moving up it is in a very small shape like the size of the B is very very small so design of the sparer itself is a very important parameter in the design of a bioreactor the other part would be what are the Restriction what would what are the phases that the oxygen has to go through so oxygen inside the bubble is in the gas phase now when you have a bubble it is inside a liquid media you have a film that generates at the surface right so the oxygen has to come out from the gas bubble go through this particular film into the and this film is because of the liquid media surface tension right the bubbles is going through the liquid medium so it’s going to be have a sort of like a restrictive film across it which will get generated and that particular film has to be crossed before the oxygen goes into the medium it’s a very important parameter to look at similar type of film does exist on the cell structure itself so you have now two films through which the oxygen has to go through the movement of oxygen in a bio reactor is also called as a two film Theory because of these two films that exist we’ll be discussing that in detail but I’m just giving you a bit of a basic idea to it so oxygen transfer from gas bubbles to the fermentation broth takes place uh goes through the the two phases so it is going from the gas bubbles to the fermentation broth Now product recovery from the Aquas to organic liquid the nutrient transfer from liquid medium into the cell is also going through phases right there are two phases from liquid to to the solid the cell is considered as a solid medium not as a liquid medium the fluid velocity near the phase interface is significantly decreased diff Fusion becomes crucial for Mass transfer across the phase interface why here comes the concept of convection so let’s say if I’m going back to convection ction for a moment if you have a flat plate now I’m going to talk about convection from the heat transfer perspective first then we’ll talk about the mass transfer perspec perspective so you have a flat plate the air is going to flow over the surface of this flat plate it is going to flow in layers right that will lead to formation of a velocity boundary layer right and a thermal boundary layer depending upon which particular whether the plate or the fluid has a higher temperature so the thermal boundary layer will exist and a velocity boundary layer will exist now what is this boundary layer if you remember correctly it used to be the 99.9% of the distance at which the fluid will have the same temperature as the surrounding fluid or the so if this is at higher temperature let’s say 100° C this one is at 20 C what is the temperature at the surface the plate is at 100° C the fluid which is moving over the surface of the plate is at 20° C what is the temperature at the surface 100 20 60 50 40 80 what is the temperature at the surface I given you so many options now we call it a film temperature at the surface the velocity of the layer of the air at the surface is zero what is the mode of heat transfer at the surface of that layer with the surface of this or of the heated surface what is the mode of heat transfer then conduction same concept in convection the fluid is flowing over the surface at the surface the velocity of the fluid is zero what would be the mode of convection then sorry what would be the mode of mass transfer diffusion as the bubble is moving up it’s moving up at the surface there is that layer through which the diffusion is going to take place the mode of is convective mass transfer but it has diffus diffusion at the interface the transfer is called convective Mass transfer it has diffusion at the interface just the way you have conduction at the interface now to answer that question what would be the temperature is the film temperature the film temperature is an average of your surface temperature and the fluid temperature so that means 60 so from 60 50° C you’re going to reach all the way to 20° C so with the distance at which the fluid temperature at the surface which is 60 it will keep on lowering down and it will reach the fluid temperature of 20° C that distance is called your thermal boundary layer the velocity of the fluid is at 1 m/s at the surface it is 0 m/s the distance at which the fluid layer goes back to 1 m/s is your velocity boundary layer same concept is followed in Mass transfer at the surface it’s always a surface phenomena it’s the most interesting thing generally you you have studied this uh concept of boundary conditions have you studied boundary conditions so let’s say I give you a membrane or like a a thick slab of membranes you have diffusion taking place right so it’s minus D DC by DX inside at the surface you have air blowing so here you’ll have hm a DC right or Delta C the flux Remains the Same Mass conservation so your minus D DC by DX is equal to h a Delta C or H ma a Delta C at the surface what is the boundary condition at xal to 0 minus D DC by DX is equal to hm a Delta C that’s what your boundary condition is so now coming back into your bio Reactor with the same concept what would be the boundary condition at the surface of the gas bubble is diffusion and if it is moving with a velocity it would be convection you’re getting my point if it is stationary diffusion only the flux has to be conserved Mass has to be conserved right the mass flux has to be conserved now the theories of interfase mass transfer there is a two film Theory and a penetration Theory the two film Theory the entire resistance to transfer is contained in two fous fous films on either side of the interface in which transfer occurs by molecular diffusion we will look at what that film Theory looks like later on so the KL which is your diffusivity constant or parameter would be given by D by Z where D is the diffusivity and the Z is the film thickness the mass transfer coefficient is the KL you would see there is a term called as KL a which is used in estimating your oxygen uptake in a bi reactor the a is your area D is your diffusivity the Z is a distance that it has moved it requires for the diffusion that combined gives you the KL and the a gives you the area the penetration theory on the other hand assumes turbulent edes travel from the bulk of the phase to the interface where they remain for a constant exposure time T the solute is assumed to penetrate into the Eddie during its stay at the interface by diffusion so the k for that particular case is given by this equation don’t get bothered by the equations that much but understand the conceptual part at the interface what is your boundary condition that matters the most if there is a thick layer at the interface the diffusion of the gas has has to come from inside which is at highest concentration it is going to diffuse through that thick layer and into the medium and then from The Medium it is going to go into the cells that thick layer will have its own resistance similar to resistances that you see in your mass transfer you remember right minus da a DC by DX the resistance is given by D is DX by minus da l/ da this is your resistance R diffusion resistance to diffusion remember this we also use a term called as K which is your distribution coefficient when we are working with mass transfer which has to be multiplied to your diffusivity for a specific product or a specific uh component which is diffusing through the membrane or anything like that this is mostly used when we are working with the membrane now the film Theory so this is your phase boundary you have your gas phase and then you have your liquid phase so the gas phase film resistance and then you have your liquid phase film resistance so the rate of mass transfer is direct ly proportional to the driving force for transfer which would be the concentration gradient because that’s the only driving force if the concentration gradient does not exist mass does not move and the available area for the transfer process to take place transfer rate is directly proportional to transfer area the transfer rate is also directly proportional to the driving force so d force is the concentration gradient and the a the area this K is your proportionality coefficient in case of heat transfer we generally use the K as conductivity but in this case we are not going to use it as conductivity we are going to call it as a mass transfer coefficient I have used the same as hm before but I said it is convective Mass Mass transfer coefficient but here we are using it as a k because diffusive values it the K is already estimating d by Z right so it already has the parameter of diffusivity in it so I’m not representing it as D I’m representing it as K this is because of the film Theory the K depends on the boundary layer the geometry the flow and the fluid properties why ral’s number Schmid number are involved right so number is going to give you the require all the fluid properties if the material is very viscous what would be the mass transfer will it be less will it be more it would be less diffusion would be less right if it is yeah flu viscosity is the most important fluid property other would be the speed at which the fluid is Flowing that will determine the rate of mass transfer the value of K what else can be taken into account the temperature the density density will Define not the temperature the density will Define change in temperature will change the density but density is the the parameter that will defin so density viscosity right all of these will come into the fluid properties that we are looking at so the gas liquid mass transfer the rate of mass transfer of a component a through the gas boundary layer for that means your gas B B layer is kga a c a minus C AI that this layer the distance the the concentration gradient similarly for the liquid side it would be KL c a i minus Cal so the thing is there’s always a resistance at the boundary at the phas right so when you have your concentration coming in it is at a lower concentration at the surface then the concentration that was there in the bulk then from there when it goes into another phase there’s a drop let’s say if I use a membrane there will be a drop in the concentration within the membrane if the the concentration on the left hand side of the material is pretty high than on the right hand side so there’s a drop because that would be determined by the diffusivity parameter permeability of that membrane how much of the material can be diffused through at a given time if it can only give let’s say if 10 molecule comes on the one side of the membrane so if this is a membrane 10 molecules have come from the bulk and they’re like hey I I need to go through I need to go through but this particular membrane can only allow two at a time or three at a time it will only allow three so there would be dip in the concentration from the surface within it at this surface you’ll have three now this three is still higher than what is present on the right hand side so that that dip is what you are seeing here got the concept in the most Len way I’m trying to explain there is a dip because of how much can go through at a given time that’s the resistance of the film that will determine now assume equilibrium exist at the interfaces cagi and CLI can be related equilibrium concentration in the gas phase is a linear function of the liquid concentration the steady state at interface there is no accumulation of component a so there is the K Star Distribution coefficient is not existing there the component a transported through Phase 1 must be transported through Phase 2 these are the assumptions that you have to make so your n a is equal to n l is equal to n a the total flux the mass is conserved or the flux is conser conserved at all times now oxygen Mass transfer so when you multiply equation 2 by m so your equation two is here on the liquid side and rearrange you get this particular equation here now dividing the equation by m we’ll provide you further so the overall the most important equation that you have to look into would be this or sorry this where the KL is overall Mass transfer coefficient so KL is c l star minus c a l this is the equation that determines the mass transfer you have your flux isal sorry you have your uh mass flow on one side you have your KL which is your overall Mass transfer coefficient a and the CL star minus CL where exactly will you have the Cal star at the interface now this this particular uh concept that is there so liquid phase Mass transfer resistant dominates and the kga is much larger than the klaa so liquid side Mass transfer resistance is more as compared to the gas side resistance which is an obvious thing liquid side will have a higher resistance as compared to the gas side so the kga would be higher in terms of the to maintain the flow so the rate of oxygen transfer from gas to liquid is of prime importance in an aerobic fermentation process because without oxygen the micros are not going to grow but understanding how much oxygen is required the oxygen demand of the microbes will be able you will provide you with the information which will be which will make you capable to estimate the flow rate that you will set up so that your oxygen transfer rate is always higher than the O oxygen uptake rate can you so let’s say if if I give you a bi reactor you are purging oxygen into it I ask you to stop it what will happen what is the worst case that will happen eventually the cells will die right but what if you reduce it only for a certain period of time and then again increase it will that impact the metabolic pathway of the the cells or how what type of product is being formed by the cells because for survival the cells will change their Machinery immediately and then again when they get it they are going to go into a different mode so that switching of the mode takes a bit of time so there is always some uh products which gets generated during that period so it’s always make you have to always make sure for an aerobic fermentation system you’re maintaining the oxygen demand that is required by the fermentation system other otherwise what the product that you are expecting the quality of the product that you’re expecting might not be there at high cell densities oxygen is quickly consumed in an aerobic culture and must be constantly replaced by sparging the low solubility of oxygen which is Max of 7 to 8 PPM at ambient condition now if you ask me what an ambient condition would be I will say 25° C that’s what an ambient condition is for us what would would the ambient condition in a bi reactor 25° C the ambient condition is ambient condition you don’t change it so the low solubility of oxygen limits the concentration difference the CL R by minus cl to very small value at all times what it means is like once the oxygen has come out of the bubble so now once the oxygen has come out of the gas bubble it has to be in the liquid medium but if it does not dissolve if it does not solubilize in the liquid medium it cannot be transported now the the the solubility is less the concentration in the liquid medium available of concentration of oxygen in the liquid medium is less as compared to that present in the gas that might be available for the cells to obtain so that means your oxygen concentration in the liquid medium is lower that’s an obvious thing as compared to what is there in the gas but because of lower solubility it goes even lower the then what is present like you have added let’s say 10 but only five or six would be available for the cells because the solubility is less now solubility is uh depends on the temperature solubility depends on the pressure solubility depends on the fluid properties so all of those parameters has to be taken into account when you’re trying to Define how much oxygen would get solubilized what can you do in that case if you want to improve the solubility of your fermentation system what will you do you can change the type of medium that you’re using that might be able to dissolve more oxygen in it or you can provide some sort of uh let’s say additives that will help dissolve oxygen but all of that will impact your fermentation process so you have to be very careful in choosing what you can do to maintain this oxygen demand so designing of the fermentors for aerobic operation takes these factors into account to provide Optimum Mass transfer conditions now factors affecting cellular oxygen demand now the rate of oxygen consumptions by cell determines the rate of oxygen from transfer from the gas to broth the OTR is dependent on o how much oxygen is being taken away that will determine what the OTR would be that means oxygen coming from the uh from the gas bubbles into the liquid medium now factors that influence this oxygen demand are the type of microbes the host the type of microb that you have chosen for the fermentation process the species some uh microbes require higher oxygen they have higher oxygen demand some don’t have that high as compared to the others the culture growth phase whether it is in the lack phase whether it is in the log phase early log phase or later log phase like in the de acceleration stage or in the stage phase the oxygen demand will change will it not when do you think in the case of the cell growth the oxygen demand is the highest the early growth phase to the the exponential phase as it being the constant phase where you have the constant growth going up your oxygen demand is high you need as it is doubling right at this particular stage when it is starting to e climatize you might not have a very high oxygen demand but the moment it will start dividing the oxygen demand will shoot up and you have to make sure during that period you’re providing appropriate amount of oxygen into your bi reactor and the nature of the carbon Source in the medium the type of source of carbon that you choose will also Define how much oxygen is there is is available because if the if the if the source itself interacts with the oxygen then less oxygen is available okay you have to be very cautious about the choice of your source now factors affecting cellular oxygen demand so in a batch culture the rate of oxygen uptake varies as the concentration of cells increases during the ctiv cultivation period this means that the rate of oxygen uptake is proportional to the number of cell present so as the number of cells will increase the rate of uptake of oxygen will INE increase so in a batch culture the rate of oxygen uptake varies as the concentration of cells increases during the cultivation period so as you are growing the bulk of the cell Mass keeps on increasing your oxygen demand will also keep on increasing now the specific oxygen uptake which is your Q2 or the specific oxygen uptake rate increases to a Max maximum value at early log phase and then it decreases gradually at early log phase it will start it increases and then it decreases gradually so you you can see that early loog phase it has increased for a certain period of time and then it has decreased gradually as the cell concentration has increase this is your X this is your Q2 okay and now this is where we were talking about the film theories type right so you have the gas liquid interface and the liquid cell interface so your OTR is basically the oxygen that is coming out from the gas into the liquid that is your oxygen transfer rate and then your o is from the liquid whatever oxygen is being taken away by the cell again the question would be single cells in a cluster things will change because this size of this interface will change question is this so let’s say you have a cluster of cells right now there is this let’s say a thin layer of interface over please excuse my drawing okay please excuse my drawing now this particular cell requires oxygen now the oxygen which is coming in has to pass through the other cells to reach that last cell right that’s why clusters are not good for your bi reactor because the cells will die they cannot get enough oxygen for their survival and that might lead to production of uh products that are of not your interest that is something that you don’t want so you always try to reduce the cluster what is the way that you can reduce the cluster agitation right not this type of agitation a single one you have an agitation rotating at a particular speed question here if I may so let’s say if I give you a bio reactor I have a sparer that is pumping I have set the flate of oxygen or the flow rate of the gas through the sparer let’s say okay volumetric fluorate would be like let’s say 50 ml per liter like 50 mL of oxygen per liter I’m just throwing it in will the speed of the agitate impact how much oxygen will get dissolved in the water if just the water is here if I take a dissolve oxygen probe at one end and put it inside of my in the in the fermentor or in the by reactor and I change the speed of my agitator do you think that will change the amount of oxygen that would be present in the water because it is going to break the bubbles into smaller bubbles diffusion changes smaller bubbles will have smaller interface layer thinner not smaller thinner interface layer so your mass transfer is higher larger the surface area more the catalysis we call it more smaller the bubbles is much better it is the easiest example to that would be um the the Taps that you see these days the old tabs were like just the liquid coming out this uh current time the tabs it gives you that sound sh and it comes out in like bubbles like in streamlines right it’s less water but it’s very stream line so that’s why it reduces the amount of water that you’re using same way you if you streamline if you basically break all the bubbles into very small bubbles it will diffuse very EAS easily in the medium so agitation does impact the OTR oxygen transfer rate it’s a very important parameter in that case and that’s why when you’re trying to think about scale up from a small scale to a larger scale you have to maintain that OTR depending upon because larger the fermentor more the OU are so you have to increase your OTR so what all you have to increase you have to increase your agitation system also and the amount of flow of oxygen the sparer design Everything Will Change that’s why scale up is not an easy process when we looking at the fermentation we think about it’s a small bottle I can go to a bigger bottle it doesn’t it does not replicate just by comparing okay in this small bottle I have 2 L for 2 L I used uh this much of oxygen so how much will I use for 4 L you don’t do that calculation anymore because if you do that your OTR is less you have to now think about what are the other parameters that were impacting my whole thing now the viscosity will change the density will change because I’m going into bigger system you have to take into account all the other parameters to estimate the scale up that’s why understanding Mass transfer is very very important before you understand scaleup any questions no excuse me now now if the qo which is your specific oxygen uptake rate is the oxygen sorry if the qo is oxygen uptake small qo is your specific oxygen uptake rate if the qo is oxygen uptake rate per volume of the broth and qo is your specific oxygen uptake rate the equation is your qo divided by X it has to be with respect to the X to give you your specific oxygen uptake rate so total of oxygen upt rate divided by per unit volume divided by the cell biomass so inherent demand of oxygen depends primary primarily on the biochemical nature of the cell and its nutritional environment now this is also another parameter that has to be taken into account when you’re trying to design a particular bioprocess what it means is that many of times when you’re designing a bioprocess the type of uh sources you use as your medium Source or the uh nutrient Source how is the bacteria going to utilize it it’s like how much water you’re going to drink if you’re eating something very very spicy it will change the amount of water intake for you depending on the type of food that you’re eating right same thing happens with the cells there’s not much of a difference in that sort of concept but the cells biochemical pathway will change and the amount of water demand or sorry oxygen demand will also change depending upon the type of carbon source that they are working with the other aspect would be the environment depending on the temperature outside the the temperature of the medium the cell metabolism might reduce the cell metabolism might increase right because if the temperature is at its Optimum the cell growth was Optimum the moment we cross that Optimum temperature threshold you remember from yesterday’s lecture the moment we cross this Optimum temperature threshold the cell starts to die but it will keep on increasing as I’m increasing the temperature so that means more and more metabolism is taking place more and more cell mass is growing my oxygen demand is higher so the surrounding environmental parameters also impact the amount of oxygen that would be required for the cell to grow you have to take into that take that into account when you’re trying to design your bi reactor again as the level of dissolved oxygen in the BR Falls below a certain point which is your critical oxygen level the specific rate of oxygen uptake is also dependent on the oxygen concentration in the broth so you have to make sure that you have provided enough oxygen beyond the threshold not less than the threshold beyond the Threshold at all times to maintain enough oxygen in the broth the broth that we keep on talking about is the medium you need to maintain enough oxygen in the broth for the cells to grow it’s the same concept again and again you have to maintain the oxygen you have to maintain the oxygen but that maintenance of oxyen depends on the broth parameters like the type of sugar that you are taking the species the cell species that you have inside the what else the properties of the fluid that you are using so to eliminate dissolved oxygen just give me one second oh yeah so to eliminate dissolved oxygen limitations and allow cell metabolism to function at its Optimum the dissolved oxygen concentration at every point in the fermentor must be above the C critical so you don’t want to be below the C critical at any given point as the fermentor is running estimation of the C critical is very very important how will you estimate this C critical just give me an idea on that how will you estimate the C critical value through experimentation you’ll try to see the optimum growth right you’re going to you never go to the fermentor directly you always go to the seed culture you have a small scale fermentation unit first that is what you’re trying to optimize first and then only then you go into the industrial scale fermenter so you try everything there understanding the relationship between all the process parameters with your cell growth and only then you replicate that in a large scale formentor you can estimate through that through experiment ation that’s the only way you can do it the exact value of C critical depends on the organism but under average condition operating conditions usually Falls between 5 to 10% of air saturation so other way to circumvent the circumvent the C critical is pump as much as you can just pump as much as you can but that is going to add to the cost that’s why understanding the SEC iCal is important because when you are working with Precision fermentation you are always giving every parameter at the precise value at the specific value nothing more nothing less you’re trying to optimize your productivity right improve your productivity with the least amount of resources oxygen is not a cheap substrate that is added to your fermentation system so you have have to be very careful in estimating the C critical for cells with relatively high C critical level the task of transferring sufficient oxygen to maintain the concentration on the liquid side the Cal greater than the C critical now what is this C critical C critical is the concentration of oxygen that should be there available for the cells to take right so that means I’m not bothered about how much oxygen is there in the bubble I’m more bothered about how much oxygen is dissolved in the liquid medium at all times so when you are putting your dissolved oxygen probe you’re estimating how much oxygen dissolved in the medium that gives you the idea so you’re trying to maintain that Cal that me the concentration in the liquid medium over the C critical value it’s always more challenging than for the cultures with a low C critical so for cells with relatively high C critical level the task of transferring sufficient oxygen to maintain Cal is always more challenging than for cultures with low cal or C critical why if I have cells which have a very high Ur oxygen uptake rate or the demand is pretty high you have to maintain a pretty high concentration of Cal right why it is a challenging thing fluid properties like how much oxygen can you dissolve there’s a limitation to it right you cannot increase the temperature you cannot change the pressure what do you change you change your agitation you Chang how much oxygen you are pumping in those are the very few parameters that you can actually handle and control you cannot play with the temperature and pressure that much because the moment you change the temperature you’re going to change the growth rate you don’t want to go into the thermal rate uh thermal death rate for uh for your micros right you want to maintain it below that but there are only few parameters that are manageable or can be maintained by you so maintaining any so choosing the right host which will require less and less oxygen and still give you your product might be an ideal choice to reduce the overall cost of production if you’re choosing something which is of higher oxygen demand you have to provide more oxygen at all times and that is going to increase your production cost so a lot of parameters gets affected by this the choice of substrate for the fermentation can also significantly affect your oxygen demand as glucose is generally consumed more rapidly than other sugars or carbon containing substrates rate of oxygen demands are higher when glucose is used now you see the relationship between the substrate and oxygen demand I’m hungry or I get to see gulab jamun I love gulab Jam I’ll eat a lot of it but I need to drink water too you all depends on your choice right when you’re when they are basically consuming glucose that means your metabolic pathway is consuming glucose continuously it is going to need because it it cells don’t say to themselves you know what my tummy is full I’m going to sit now I W I don’t want that extra glucose right now I’m good I’m good no they they will continue dividing they’ll continue consuming it they don’t stop like us they continue consuming it that creates the situation in which your oxygen is being continuously utilized for the growth of your microbes so for that you have to maintain it depending on the choice of the substrate that you have used you might want to change glucose to galactose or fructose something which the micros might not like that much or the the demand of oxygen for the processing of that uh sugar would be less so you have to choose the right carbon source for the growth of your microbes now the step of Transport for the gas uh for of oxygen from the gas bubble to the cell I have already discussed this a little bit let’s look at it so let’s say this is your gas bubble inside this is your gas liquid interface so at the gas liquid interface I said that this is an imaginary or line or imaginary thickness or layer which is present and that oxygen has to cross through this layer and only then it will reach the cells so oxygen molecules must overcome a series of Transport resistances before being utilized by the cell what about this cell or the cell here it might get the oxygen from the other sides but I’m just saying that there are other cells around it’s a cluster it will has to go through now other barriers so you will keep on increasing the resistance for the oxygen transport you’re going to reduce the amount of oxygen that is going to be transported the stagnant medium or the stagnant region is the uh the the the film that we have talked about the two films on the liquid side and on the gas side you you should have heard about this in certain biomaterials porous biomaterials which are used uh to immobilize cell for cell growth or they can be used for as uh as a scaffold for the cells to grow properly and they poor in nature for the nutrients to get transported for the oxygen to get transported quite easily to the microbes those are also utilized these days in the fermentation process to improve the amount of oxygen that is transported into the system it’s like uh it’s a very porous media and the cells are growing on the surface of these pores or on the surface and then because it’s Hollow and porous the liquid medium with the nutrient and the oxygen can go through the distance that they have to now move for the oxygen transport is less so that reduces the amount of resistance it’s it’s like imagine this as a pen this has a hollow cylinder but it’s a very small section of it so there is a small hole in the center okay and this whole structure the cylinder part is porous in nature the cells will be growing or immobilized on on the surface am I correct now the nutrient can flow through the hole in the center on the like axially and the transport of nutrients can happen through the pores inside so it’s a porous media the cells are growing on the surface that is sometimes used for cell culture basically we use that for cell culture but those type of materials are or the beads we call them are generally used in the fermentation system even nanomaterials are also being used in the fermentation system okay this is just to improve the overall fermentation efficiency I want more cell Mass but I want to reduce the overall cost so if I can do that why not okay so steps for the oxygen transport from gas bubble to the cell so transfer through the bulk gas phase in the bubble is relatively fast the gas liquid interface itself contr attributes negligible resistance the gas liquid interface is negligible resistance the liquid film around is a major resistance for the transport so you have your gas bubble it has released the oxygen into the liquid and then it goes towards the cell that’s the major hindrance or the resistance in a well mixed fermentor concentration gradients in the bulk liquid are minimized and the mass transfer resistance in this region is small so if you are well mixed the distance imagine it this way the cell cluster is here the distance of the bubble is not too far it might be available that the distance the resistance is less that it has to go through single cells are much smaller than the gas bubbles hence the liquid film surrounding each cell is much thinner than the around the bubbles and it effects on mass transfer can be neglected completely if the cells from large clums if they form large clums liquid film resistance can be significant now the other steps for oxygen transport from gas bubble to the cell is resistance at the cell liquid interface is generally neglected resistance at the cell liquid interface is generally neglected not the liquid so the resistance at at the cell and the liquid interface if this is your cell the cell and the liquid interface is generally neglected so when the cells are in clumps intra particle resistance is likely to be significant as oxygen has to diffuse through solid pellets like one cell to another cell to reach the interior cells the magnitude of this resistance depends on the size of the clumps larger the size more the resistance smaller the size less the resistance intercellular oxygen transfer resistance is negligible because of small distance involved we don’t consider the resistance at that time when we are trying to estimate the the movement of oxygen because it’s not too like what is the size of a micro microns so it’s not too much of a distance that the oxygen has to get transferred that’s the reason so the mass balance for oxygen at a steady state will involve the k that means CL star minus CL the CL is a concentration at the liquid side CL star is on the interface where your A a is a by V A is your interfacial area interfacial transfer area and the V is the broth volume the K is your volumetric mass uh transfer coefficient this equation above can be used to predict the effect of cl to changes in the mass trans transfer operating conditions for example if K is increased by raising the stir speed to reduce the thickness of the boundary layer around the bubbles the dissolved oxygen concentration that is clal will rise for equilibrium if you can reduce the film resistance thickness you will have more CL more oxygen in the liquid similarly if the rate of oxygen consumption by the cell accelerates while K is unaffected the Cal will decrease that means the concentration of oxygen on the liquid side will decrease because now uptake has increased so you have to maintain CL whatever you do maintain CL at all cost above the C critical now the maximum cell concentration that can be supported by by the fermentate uh fermented oxygen transfer system is an important parameter to look at so the way we estimate that is for a given set of operating condition the maximum rate of oxygen transfer occurs when the concentration difference driving force that is C star CL star minus CL is highest so higher the concentration gradient more the transfer that is when the concentration of dissolved CL is zero that means the the concentration gradient would be highest when the CL is zero under what condition will the CL be zero when your OT R is equal to O so whatever oxygen comes out from the gas is consumed comes out consumed comes out consumed there is no oxygen in the medium so your C concentration gradient will always be maximum so because of that your mass transfer would be maximum so maximum cell concentration can be supported by the mass transfer function of the reactor and this is the equation that is used so your x max that means the amount of cell the maximum amount of cell that can be generated you if you know the K you know the Cal divide it with Q which is your specific oxygen uptake rate another important parameter is the max is the minimum k a required to maintain Cal over C critical in the fermentor this can be determined as CLA critical is equal to QX / CL star minus C critical this is like to maintain the cells that I have right now what is the minimum K value that I have to have this is the equation that I’m trying to use at that time to maintain what I have like what is required above or how much I can get with the respective Kaa would be the xmax value if I know what my xmax value is and I want to know how much Kaa I need to have to maintain that x max is what I will use the second equations this is to get what xmax I want I can get second is to what K I should have to maintain it now determining the mass transfer coefficient the KL the k and a can be calculated using empirical correlations and experimental me measurements experimental measurements are the most common way of estimating the K value separate determination of KL and a is tedious it is convenient to directly evaluate the product Kaa The combined term Kaa is referred as a volumetric mass transfer coefficient the objective of the ferment design is to maximize oxygen transfer rate with minimum power consumptions necessary to agitate the fluid and also minimum air flow rate you got the drift least amount of air flow least amount of agitation but I still want growth right it sounds like Industries I’ll give you least amount of money but I want the product right the boss will come and give you the work and they’ll say like okay I’m not giving going to give you enough salary but you have to do it it’s exactly like that so you the reasoning for that is because all of these agitation requires power power means energy is consumed energy is consumed means what amount of money that is we are going to spend on energy it becomes an energy intensive process you don’t want it to be if you’re purging in a lot of uh air inside you’re still spending a lot of money you don’t want that you want to reduce the overall cost so the idea is always you want to design a fermentor you want to make sure that you are going to use least amount of vegetation and the least amount of air flow so you have to be careful so what will you do if I want this like minimum air flow is required least amount of agitation is required what what what will you do how will you take care of it use the mic so when whenever we are selecting the media so the media which having the higher water sorry oxygen uh dis dissolving property so you will select a media that already has oxygen no no which which have the higher oxygen dissolving property because the viscosity matter the higher oxygen dissolving property that means it is able to dissolve enough oxygen in it okay got the idea but uh what media will that be it should be less viscous first of it has to be less vus okay what is the best media that we use in the ferment system what do you think is the liquid media that generally we use in the fermenter water water water right water is the only one thing that we use what other parameter can you change lower lower temperature the dissolution of carbon dioxide is higher definitely hopefully carbon oxin also higher so we can control the metabolism of the organism which can produce maximum yield at a lower temperature or we can modify the metabolism according to genetically modify the organism according to okay now let me put forward a question to you so let’s say if your intent for your fermentor is to get the maximum cell density and the cell mass that means you want to grow and grow and grow and grow and grow as much as you can okay what will happen to your Ur and O OT are even uh the oxygen uptake will be more than the oxygen transfer rate right that means you have to continuously increase your agitation yes yes so then again it is going to increase your cost what will you do at that time your intent is still to get the maximum yield but your intent is to use the least amount of agitation so you might want to go for a different type of fermentation system right yes rather than going for let’s say AIC uh a Fed batch or a batch where you have a stir you don’t want to use a stir you can go for a fluidized system in the fluidized system the cell is mixed because of the movement of the medium itself okay and mixing is taking place you might be able to get more oxygen transfer there has to be a solution I’m just trying to throw ideas I might be wrong in my idea but I’m just trying to throw to give you some type of solution you have to find me instead of agitation we can supply the oxygen as even for example uh sparge this noil can be the size of the noil can be reduced in order to reduce the size of a gas bubbling okay so that means you want spares with smaller holes like atomizer okay atomizers very good that can be used that is actually used what else you have some stabilizers can use stabilizers for what like uh even for example in certain industry uh for example in ice cream industry and all they are using certain stabilizer which will stabilize the dissolution of oxygen but I don’t know you’re comparing an Emulsion with uh with fermentation a stabilizer for an imulsion I can understand because you want to maintain them into their ulive state like dispersed State I I don’t know whether it’s work this no I I I really appreciate your effort that at least you’re you’re thinking out of the box I really appreciate that but think again it would be so funny using a stabilizer what are what are the most common stabilizer that you use like alides and if you add you’ll get clumps so the even the media uh which is used like whatever the substrate we are used for the fermentation uh which also should improve the oxygen dissolution see we we are we are we are having the same conversation again and again we are we are coming back to the media property we more or less something has to be done neither you are aware of it neither I aware of it it has to be done experimentally you have to choose right you have to go through that whole rigorous experimental process that’s the reason if you go back to my very first presentation on the fermentation when I started I showed you that diagram and I said like it has so many pipes it looks very dangerous it’s a very simple process fermentation is a very simple process but it’s very complex when you go deep into it it’s very very complex because but once you have optimized it you come you switch it on you forget about it you go back home you have your product ready that’s the way it works for this yes there there are solutions the beads I talked about that’s one of the solution where you might be able to keep your cells suspended without them clumping together they might you might give them extra surfaces so you’re increasing the surface area area but you’re also helping to improve the nutrient delivery so you’re not going to have like a thick cell mass in which you have let’s say an agitator trying the fan blade trying to move if if if your cell M was filamentous you you cannot have an agitation if you’re growing a filamental like a like a fungi you cannot have agitation it will break right the filaments so there are things that can be done there are a lot of research that keeps on going in the fermentation area even if it is the century old technique you will still find people doing research in this area just because of this it is such an interesting area okay let’s get into the final few slides of the oxygen supply sorry oxygen Mass transfer uh the factors that affect oxygen supply rate we have already discussed a few of them temperature is one of those pressure is another diffusivity now the diffusivity of what diffusivity of oxygen in the medium or diffusivity in the cell side it’s all about the CLA right in the medium the diffusivity of oxygen in the medium the viscosity of the medium density of the medium surface tension for the air bubbles surface tension will Define if I am correct the thickness of the of the film presence of surfectants surfectants can impact oxygen transfer the ionic strength can impact the oxygen transfer the concentration of solids can impact oxygen transfer power input less power input that means less agitation more power input higher agitation Iration rate higher the Iration rate you’ll be maintaining more OTR geomet of the Biore reactor you will never like to use a Biore reactor of this geometry where only you have a small like impeller in the center the mass is everywhere else you’re not going to have enough mixing so your design of the bi reactor has to be optimized based on mixing homogeneity has to be maintained homogeneous mixing of your nutrients homogeneous mixing of oxygen and it should also be capable of maintaining your cell growth and it ease of operation ease of cleaning all of those things come into picture anyway but your design has to be maintained that way now the variables that can be manipulated majority of the times are your pressure so if you increase the pressure you’re basically going to increase your OT R your Shear rate and power input that means more agitation you are increasing the OT we have already discussed this idea eration velocity will increase your OTR so there is a relationship between Iration rate and your uh agitation rate that can be studied for different mediums before I put the cell if I can study how that will change then I can provide my my cell growth into it even that will lead to changes into it but it will allow me to start with a certain SEC critical and then I can increase it depending upon how the cell is growing I know how much oxygen is required for the cells to grow I’ll keep on increasing it depending upon the demand so other parameters are for given geometry of the bioreactor depends on the nature of the fermentation process I will take a break of 15 minutes and then we’ll start the session on heat transfer operations in the Biore reactor okay e welcome back so now that we have gone through the mass transfer operations for a bioreactor we are going to go through the heat transfer operations in a bioreactor similar to mass transfer we did go through the concept of heat transfer at the very beginning of the lecture so similar to mass transfer heat transfers is also a very important parameter when you’re looking at the cell growth we have already discussed about this a little bit in detail yesterday when we were talking about the thermal depth or the growth of microbes or how the cell growth is related to the temperature so if you increase the temperature the cell growth will increase to a level which is your Optimum temperature value and below this particular temperature value the cell growth will reduce or they will die but heat transfer application is not just for the cell growth in terms of application of heat transfer in uh let’s say in molecular biology or cellular biology what do you use uh heat transer or heat for auto caving like sterilization so any time you are working with microbes let’s say any in any utensil if whether it is be a fermentor a batch fermentor or fed batch fermentor or cstr or even if you are uh let’s say curling milk any container if you have to clean it you will be applying heat to kill the microbes so that is part of the heat transport or heat application in case of uh fermentation system we need to have a sterile medium it should be free of any other micro but not free of sucrose or the nutrients that it has it has to have but it has to be free of any micro so what do you do when you’re growing uh let’s say micros on an agar plate what is the very first thing that you do with your agar gel thear you Auto cleave it heat it and then you pour you let it set then you streak your organism into it you see all the growth and everything and then when you have to get rid of it auto cleave again right so in C2 bath sterilization of liquid medium is one of the applications of uh heat transfer in by reaction or in by reactor in fermentation so in this process the fermenter vessel containing medium is heated using steam and held at sterilization temperature for a period of time it’s just like pasturization cooling water is then used to bring the temperature back to normal operating condition so you put in everything you use the steam to heat the ster up to the sterilization temperature you bring it back to an Optimum temperature that would be appropriate for your cells to grow that’s when you add your seed culture into it and then you let it ferment okay so temperature control during reactor operation is very very important to manage a few things that would be the metabolic activity of the cells generate heat because we have to have a temperature control because as the cells are growing they are also going to generate heat the metabolic activity within the cell is generating heat we have already had this discussion at the very beginning of the lecture today or the session today so some microorganisms need extreme temperature conditions example would be cyrilic thermophilic microorganisms for those we have to have we have to maintain a very high temperature now when you’re maintaining these type of organisms how will you work with your oxygen transport that will also change depending on the temperature of the medium the oxygen transport rates will also change so depending on the organism we are looking at the OTR so you study the organism you find out what OTR they require and only then you build the rest of the system on that but the generation of heat because of the metabolic or the microbial biochemical Pathways is an important parameter that you you have to take into account understanding what microbes you’re going to use for your process how they grow and how much heat do they produce is an important parameter now the heat transfer configuration for bu reactors include jacketed vessels external coils internal coils and external heat exchangers so you you will have like a jacket around the vessel that will add the heat to the vessel or you can have external coil into it and then you have your internal coils which are inside not on the outside of the fermentation system but on the inside of the fermentation system have you seen a ferment I think in today’s uh in the afternoon you’re going to see uh a bi reactor in the lab not today we don’t have the lab today okay sorry you if if you do get an opportunity go to the bio bio technology department here you should be able to see a bioreactor if you have had a course in bioprocessing if you have had a lab in that you should have seen a bio reactor so if you’re using a glass bioreactor the only way you can provide the temperature is by using a jacket around it and then that particular jacket has heating elements into it and then you pass on the heat to the fermentation system so you only jacket it to the level that you put in your fluid so that you’re not not providing excessive heat just to the fluid that is of your interest and then you have your external heat exchanger I always like these external heat exchanges they remind me of the old way of heating your water in the morning of winter you switch on and there is a probe that you put in the bucket and then you let the water heat take it out but that can also be used to murder people so don’t use that anyways so external heat exchangers are also used to maintain the temperature within a fermentation system so heat exchanger configurations so I will go with each and every one of them so external jackets and coil give low heat transfer area they are rarely used at industrial scale they are widely used at lab scale depending upon how how much money you have spent on buying your bioreactor or how much money you have for your B reactor in my research group we have this jacket ones to heat our fermentation system then you have your internal coils which are frequently used in the production vessels the coils give relatively large heat transfer area because you need more surface area for the transfer of the heat the coil interfere with the mixing in the vessel and make cleaning of the reactor difficult so if you have internal coils because they’re inside it everything is going to go over the coil have you heard about uh the term fowling right or plaque generation over the surface so if your if the heating elements are not cleaned properly or the fermentor is not cleaned properly heat exchange would be impacted so design of the heat exchanger where you have a cross flow parallel flow heat exchangers when we go into those type of design even there you have to take into account the fing process right the other would be the coil interfer sorry another problem is the growth of cells as film on the heat transfer surfaces again fing so those biofilms that get generated on the heat transfer surfaces so you have to make sure that you clean these heat transfer surfaces these heat transfer surfaces to maintain an appropriate heat transfer level external heat exchanger unit is independent of the reactor easy to scale up and provides the best heat transfer capability sterility must be maintained the cells must be able to withstand the sheer forces imposed during pumping during aerobic fermentation the residence time in the heat exchanger must be small enough to ensure that Medium does not become depleted of oxygen if you’re using an external Heat exchanger you want to make sure that the medium does not get depleted of oxygen if you’re passing the heat from another source sterility has to be maintained because sterility is the most important parameter in a fermentation process because if it was internal I know everything is inside whatever is there inside is what I’m working with if I’m using something from another location I have to make sure the sterility is maintained let’s say even if uh if I’m using some sort of like steam to heat my uh system if the steam is being produced at different location and the steam is going to be passed through the pipes right when it is going to be passed through the pipes those pipes have to be clean enough that they don’t contain anything the steam before it enters in my fermentation system I have to check that is free of any microbes right so all that uh controls have to be in place if you’re working with an external heat exchanger excuse me so common heat transfer operations uh removing heat generated during the fermentation process so the operations that invol are involved in the fermentation process would be removing the heat generated during fermentation removing heat generated due to mixing almost 90% of the time the Heat generated due to mixing is higher than the heat of reaction now this heat of reaction is not with respect to the chemical reactors I’m talking about this heat of reaction from the microbes perspective how much energy is being produced by the microbes during the growth okay so that heat is less compared to the heat generated by mixing sterilization operation is a major heat transfer operation in a fermentation system sterilization is a major heat transfer operation in a fermented system coming back to this uh what sort of mode of heat transfer is this is it convection or we are looking at convection but we looking at mostly Heat exchangers if it is internal coils we are looking at heat exchangers it’s like a heat exchanger the the heat transfer the lmtd has to be included you remember that so you have to take that into account if it is just from the outside surface and the heat is being provided by the surface of the fermentor it would be conduction but if the fluid is moving over the surface it’s conduction at the interface but there is a flow of the fluid so convection has to be taken into account then again it will depend on the fluid properties the viscosity you have to take uh you have to look into the table get the values at a specific temperature what’s the viscosity of the medium the density of the medium and then you’re going to use your nles sorry nles number equations to estimate the value so microwave growth involves complex Network for metabolic reactions now I’m talking about the heat generation because of the microbes during cell growth cell derive energy from catabolic reaction and use them to drive anabolic reactions some energy is lost to the surrounding as heat if the bioreactor temperature is to be maintained then this heat must be removed hence the first objective is to quantify the heat released due to the growth so when you are going into designing a bi reactor if you have your growth of microbes being if you’re if you’re estimating the growth rate you can also estimate the amount of heat that would be generated by that particular microbes once you estimate that value it becomes easier for you to identify what sources will you choose to remove that heat from the peration system this part is mostly numerical there are equations that are available to you to do that I’ll give you some of the examples like what would be the heat of combustion for a biomass like KJ per kg if you’re looking at an eoli you’re looking at 23.03.2013 on different biomasses you’re going to have different heat of combustions once you know your heat of communions if you do your in minus out plus generation is equal to accumulation where will this particular value go the heat generated by the micros will that be an in or will that be considered as a generation in would be anything that you’re providing out is whatever you’re taking away generation can be from the microbes that will lead to the change in the temperature with respect to time so when you do that particular balance you can take into account all the heat sources which are going to add to the system now because it generation is adding to the system is positive if it was removal of the heat there it would have been a negative value right that’s how simple it is now the model equation for the batch system for heat transfer if you remember Q is minus k a DT by DX now DX is the distance DT is the time or sorry DT is the temperature difference DX is the distance you have to have that gradient minus K is your conductivity sorry K is your conductivity is your cross-sectional area but here you’re going to look at the QR value with respect to the microbial growth so this is the equation which is used with respect to microbial growth this QR is for the microbial growth VL is the volume okay change in biomass concentration with respect to time DX by DT is your biomass con uh concentration with respect to time so the I take that into account the yield you’ll be able to estimate how much would be the heat of combustion coming out so if you know the heat of combustion you know the biomass concentration you can estimate the amount of heat that is coming out for that particular biomass in a given period of time so the total heat that has to be removed would be this QR the heat of combustion or the heat generated by the biomass and the heat added by mixing so Q mixing is a heat generated due to agitation where we are converting the mechanical energy to the heat energy assuming no heat loss to the surrounding this amount of heat must be removed from the system to maintain constant temperature in the bioreactor so if you have a bioreactor this agitation as it is going around you it is going to generate heat because of the sheer stress like there’s a friction as is moving through you that heat which is generated my major concerns this is my own personal opinion to this my major concern with respect to the agitation has been that it does not generate a very huge amount of heat even if you keep on rotating your hand inside of water you won’t be generating a lot of heat yes you’ll warm it up a little bit maybe by a degree or two but even that small degree or two can impact your fermentation process because it’s a very controlled precise system so heat transfer area should be designated sorry designed accordingly so you’re what you’re looking for from the Q mixing is the UA delta T U is your overall heat transfer coefficient a is your surface area delta T is the temperature difference so the heat accumulation now would be the heat generation minus the heat removed so your DT by DT is the term with respect to your accumulation the CP is your heat capacity density and the volume then you’re looking at the Q and you’re looking at the UA delta T the QR is your for the biomass you have it for your mixing you add both of them you get the value for the total amount of heat that is going to be generated that needs to be removed how do you remove heat in uh fermentation system if you’re using that internal coil those are not heated coils let’s say those coils are hollow tubes and you’re passing steam through them if you pass cold water you’re going to reduce the temperature right if you have a jacket you pass cold water you’re going to reduce the temperature so you always use a medium that is able to extract the heat from the medium of the fermentation medium fairly quickly because you don’t want to have uh spend too much time in that right longer the medium will remain at a higher temperature it might lose its viability so you want to reduce amount of time that is required for the removal of the Heat and reach the optimum temperature that is required for your cells to grow that balance is very very important okay is there any other idea that you can actually use for removal of heat you have have your uh you can use some condensation column like you circulate it the circulation can be done the media can be circulated the media can be so you’re taking the media out of the fermentation system no like when there is a for example in pools and all there is a water purification the same way you’ll be like one time it’s circulating like there’s a pipe should be there from the side and it’s circulating like see you forgetting two things so yes there is a heat which is being generated by the cell uhhuh right yes there is a heat which is generated by the mixing now from where are you actually taking away from this heat from the surface right you’re not taking the heat from inside the broth or the medium you’re taking the heat away from the surface from the surface so if you increase the surface area reduce you are able to remove more heat heat that’s one way of doing it by increasing the surface area so baffles sometimes are not only used to get rid of the edies but they are also used to increase the overall heat transfer surface area question for you in this case this is just from the conceptual perspective so you have your medium so heat is going to pass from your medium to your surface right that is conduction so you do you remember the unsteady State heat transfer in unsteady State heat transfer we have something called as uh High SL char charts High SL charts you don’t remember that for different types of geometry if you have like a slab you have a cylinder or a hollow fiber or a sphere you can use these charts to estimate what would be the heat transfer specifically for cylinder slab and uh Sphere not for the hollow fibers I haven’t seen that but cylinder slab sphere you can use this high but the condition for those ISO chart was the surface the condition at the surface the B at the surface is maintained throughout the process it is not changing but here the things are changing so that mean what I’m what it means is like let’s say if this is a slab we’ll always look at the Symmetry and then if this is your x equal to 0 this becomes your x equal to l the length of least resistance right the length of least resistance that the least amount of distance that the heat has to travel to get out so if you’re looking at the Burger let’s say a burger patty the Alo Patty or potato Patty that you get the heat transfer if you’re doing conduction what would be the the L value in this case it would be the thickness not the length because this is the least resistance the heat is going to transfer this way why why I’m bringing this is I’m trying to imagine in our conversation with each other the medium in a cylindrical in a cylindrical uh fermentor system can be considered as a cylinder of uniform conductivity it can be considered as a cylinder of a uniform conductivity if it is homogeneously mixed if it is homogeneously mixed can I consider it to be a uniform distributed conductive material a cylindrical now the heat is going from inside to outside if the heat is being removed from the surface right heat is going from inside to outside now as you increase the size of the fermentor you’re increasing the surface area right as in the cylinder like in a slab the heat transfer is linear in a cylinder the Heat transfer is not linear it’s parabolic because of an increase in the area in the radius the surface area keeps on increasing the heat transfer the Q will keep on increasing in this case how will that impact if I consider that removal of the heat from the surface do you think that will have any impact if the material is stationary and if the material is moving homogeneous nature is maintained I have my material heated at a specific value I have to remove the heat so then it becomes if I am passing cold water on the surface of the jacket I’m basically doing convection convective heat transfer removal right but that would be from a cylindrical surface it would will it be considered as a force convection over a cylindrical surface there is an equation for force convection over a cylindrical surface right which can be used that nles number equations so those nles number equations can be used if you def if you have a defined geometry of your bio reactor when you’re trying to cool it down heat it up you’re using those defined nusle number equations to estimate the amount of heat transferred yes you’re getting my idea of the drift because I’m considering the whole bi reactor only the medium part as a cylinder of homogeneous constant conductivity there is water flowing over the surface that means through convection the water jacket is Flowing so will that be considered as a convective heat trans transer that is what my question is will that be considered as a convective heat transfer will that be considered as a heat exchanger will you consider it to be like a uh like a conduction a basic conduction because water is Flowing so convection is there how will you take it how will you take it like can you take it as convection can you take it as basic so convection within the uh media and then from the film the film which is at the boundary layer from there to the uh like jacket as conduction if the medium is moving then convection yeah right I’m considering the medium as stationary it’s like a solid cylinder of uniform conductivity because of the homogenity being maintained can I consider the heat that is coming out of that Medium because I’m trying to remove it from the surface and if I’m passing the water in tubes will that be considered as a convection or will that be considered as a heat exchanger as a heat exchanger as a heat exchanger so we generally end up using heat exchanger equations to solve the amount of heat that is being removed from the peration system but we use convective equations to estimate the amount of heat that we are generating within the fermentation system okay so don’t get confused in those two now design equation for a continuous system so the heat accumulation is equal to the heat input due to flow heat out due to flow heat generated and the heat removed by cooling so your accumulation is this ter so you have your VL row CP DT by DT you know what is v why VL row volumetric flate or the mCP delta T V is what is mass volume into density right so you have your volume into density CP delta T So mCP delta T is the amount of heat which is there accumulated within the system clear so this term is your mCP delta T similarly break it down for yourself first thing is heat input due to flow f is your flow row CP now this becomes volumetric flow f is your volumetric flow so that becomes your mass flow rate this is your heat generated because of biomass this is the heat added because of mixing this is the heat being removed this TC is the cold temperature right it is the heat being removed u a delta T U is your overall Heat transfer coefficient but we are looking it as from conduction perspective or convective perspective convection UA delta T okay we’re looking from the convection perspective so understand like mCP delta T is the key here so don’t get confused by the overall uh these big equations mCP delta T is what the VL row CP is the volume into density will give you the mass the CP then the delta T So model equation should be able to predict what heat transfer area is needed to achieve the required temperature time profile so if you are able to identify these equations once you solve this equation you’ll be able to predict what heat transfer area is required or is needed to achieve the required temperature time profile okay so if you’re designing your Biore reactor if you know how much heat is being generated by the biomass what would be the removal of the heat you can design inside again the area so you can add baffles just in case if you want to improve the overall removal of heat you can add baffles if you don’t need you can change the number of coils that you’ll have so you can do a lot of those modifications to your design of the bioreactor depending upon what heat requirement is or what heat removal requirement is then comes the topic of scaleup okay so Mass transfer done heat transfer is mostly for sterilization purposes heat transfer application is mostly for sterilization purposes I’m not going to teach you that log 10 deductions okay that is not part of this or it’s not in the scope of our conversation today you can check when you’re working on the calization pasturization purposes for your own courses the idea of heat transfer in the Forma system is because of the sterilization of the media because everything has to be sterile to start with once you add your culture to it or the seed culture to it that’s when it will start growing the other aspect of the heat transfer was to maintain the heat for the optimal growth of your microbes that is by your mixing the heat that is being added the generation of the biomass the heat that is being added and how much you can remove UA delta T right so that’s was what was involved now look at the scale up now you have understand you have now you have understood your mass transfer and the heat transfer now keep those Concepts in mind and then think about your scaleup all of those parameters have to be transferred if you’re moving from a small fermentor to a larger fermentor your OTR Ur has to be maintained your removal of heat has to be maintained the agitation speed that you were using in a smaller fermentor might not be the same as a larger fermentor the amount of power input for that small that agitation will differ if you’re working on a larger fermentor so all of that power ratio has to be maintained when you’re looking at scaleup so what is the scaleup in practice scaleup it is the study of problems associated with the transfer of experimental data from Laboratories and pilot plants equipments to a large scale industrial equipment so you’re starting from a test tube to a 5 ml flask 35 ml flask to 200 mL flask then you go to a 5 lit bioreactor move to a 30 L bioreactor 220 L bioreactor I personally have seen up to 1,000 L bioreactors then you go to 10,000 L bi reactors we have already scaled up these bio reactors up to 600,000 L now there are bi reactors of capabilities of 600,000 L think about it now it’s a very scaling it’s a process that can be scaled up quickly but it has to be done in a proper way because there are so many parameters that depends on the scale of process itself your heat transfer Mass transfer Mass transfer specifically your oxygen whenever you think about Mass transfer in a fermentation system it’s all about oxygen when you think about heat transfering for itation system the heat generated by the biomass plus the stiring is not that significant it’s all about sterilization the most important part will be the sterilization that’s the most important heat transfer application in the fermentation process what else will you take into account if you’re thinking about the scaleup the geometry of your bioreactor that has to be taken into account right the diameter the height all of that has to be taken into account the third most important the nature of your organism has to be taken into account the fourth so nature of the organism heat and mass what else was there this agitation is going to impact Mass it’s going to impact heat what else Iration agitation is going to impact Iration aration is going to impact mass aration is also going to impact heat can I now Iration is mostly for the mass transfer applications okay what else will you take into account when you’re looking at scale up you have taken your bioprocess course come on thinky thinky I can see people’s mouth moving but I cannot hear anything honestly give it a try there is no wrong answer let her answer first just three parameters we mainly consider about one is uh K okay that is your a m sir and imp tip speed tip speed that is your agitation yes sir you written everything sir then what else is there and the geometry right these are the three we take care because power power conception power conception is also agitation yes sir py yeah but then it is used for what power is used for what again comes to the and agitation but these are the three things mainly but you have written already yes but I’m seeing it from a different perspective right as a faculty my intent is that you just don’t give me the bookish example of the tips paid and all those things you give me from the conceptual whatever you have understood till now we have discussed batch reactors we have discussed fed batch reactor we have discussed how to design a batch reactor we have discussed how to design a Fed batch reactor you know none of you have talked to me about when you’re changing the geometry you’re also going to change the flow of your feed your feed rates will change there are so many parameters change the moment you change the design of your bioreactor or even when you scale it up there are a lot of things that come into picture the most important that are used to take if I have to take this pen make a bigger pen I will will take the things that I can control the first thing is the geometry that I can actually control and pass it on that’s why you were taking about talking about that now tip speed and all those things affect your agitation affect your K values how many let’s say for a small fermentor oh yeah see for a small fermentor I will can use only one impeller but what was the design of the pill that I was using for a small fermentor might not work if I move it to a bigger fermentor what will you do then the heat the agitation will change right so it requires some consistency but there are also certain parameters where variability exist that variability is what matters the most but for fermentation is a very forgiving unit operation that’s why I said it’s a very simple system it’s like it’s like one of the nicest unit operation that you can work with it’s also very forgiving you add everything you will get something at least but if you are able to put a little bit of effort in understanding each and every intricacies and then design it it will give you the best of it that’s what the intent is in our conversation I can understand what you told me the tips paid I have all of that in my slides next but I just wanted to get a bit more from you what else will you change if you are moving from one smaller fermentor to a larger fermentor what else will you change are we just focusing on the batch if we are only focusing on the batch I will not care about the feed will I care about the feed I won’t what if I’m trying to scale up on a Fed batch level I have to think about my feed rates my flow rates so that has to be scaled up depending upon how much I want to grow but that would also come with a different set of calculation but that has nothing to do with the design of the fermentor you’re getting my point that has to do with my working but it has nothing to do with my design of the ferment that’s the reason why feeds and all those things are not taken into account that will only depend on the growth productivity that you want productivity has nothing to do with the respect to the design in terms like in our conversation I’m just saying it’s just physical conversion of a small thing into bigger thing that is what we are talking about so we’ll get more into this so what is the exact aim of scaling up the objective is to keep the cellular environment constant your cellular environment has to be constant across scales to achieve comparable growth I’m not using the term exact I wish I can use the term exact but I’m using a comparable you might not get an exact growth but you’ll get a comparable growth relatively comparable growth metabolism productivity and product quality sometimes like people make fun of these things where they’ll say it’s like a onetime Wonder right your thing worked at the lab skill the moment you scaled it up it didn’t there is something wrong in the input for your large skill that’s what the problem is there’s nothing wrong at a small skill but there is something which is missing at the large scale understanding that from the biochemical perspective everything will remain the same it’s mostly the physical that thing has changed from a small fermentor I became a bigger fermentor that’s it I used to be a thin guy now I’m a big guy it changes but inside I remain the same I used to be the same person 10 years back I’m the same person 10 years now or I will be the same person 10 10 years after except I would be much more older but my body will change that’s what the scale up is all about is you’re changing the physical aspect but internal has to be constant you’re trying to maintain it as much as possible so which are the most important criteria similarity criteria now we talked about that and thank you for bringing all of that answers so similarity criteria that you have to maintain would be your mass transport which is your O2 and the CO2 the CO2 which is being generated has to be removed larger the fermentor more the biomass more the CO2 more the removal larger the fermentor more the biomass more the O2 mode is required mechanical stress on the cells larger the biomas bigger the agitators and the impellers the design of the impellers more the stress sheer stress larger the population too many people right it’s just like going in an autoa or you’re going in a crowded bus scaled up stress right from the sales perspective mixing time that would have been required at a small scale would be very different than the mixing time that would be required at a larger scale so how quickly can you reach the homogeneous or homogeneity is very very important when you’re trying to do scaleup now these are the most important parameters from the industrial perspective think about I’m so proud that you all are aware of the basics of scaleup I’m really really proud of that think it from a completely I said you keep an open mind think it from your own project your own uh experiences how are you going to do the scale of what are the parameters that will get impacted the most that has to be taken into account oh sorry okay yeah so the scale of principles uh involv ensuring circulation of nutrients dissolved gases and removing metabolites is an important in B reactor agitation and Iration allows for the bulk liquid mixing and sheer stress agitation adds to that oxygen transport and pco2 removal is through the areation aspect mixing is more difficult as scales increases mixing does become an issue as the scale increases so on the right hand side you can see the process definitions uh I would like you all to look at this particular link to get the same uh graph that I’m using here so temperature control so temperature is directly related to cell growth and viability okay then temperature control also regulates the O2 and the CO2 solubilities then you have your pressure control pressure control basically impacts your CO2 and O2 solubilities and that impact imps your cellular environment nutrient addition your glucose glutamine and the feed addition nutrient concentration that will impact your cellular uh environment if you’re looking at the pH you have your base addition now why do you add a base to maintain the pH right so now the base if the base and the substrate will interact or some other combinations get generated that is going to impact your cellular environment the one comes here is the focus the dissolve oxygen control so dissolve oxygen control is through agitation gas flow rates and the Sparger type the type of sparer that you’re going to use at a small scale I could have had a ring Sparger at a large scale what will I do if I have a larger like as big as this if I have a larger Sparger here the bubbles are going only in the quter nothing is going to come in the center so I have to Define I have to design a sparer which is multi-layer right so you have to think about the design from that perspective nobody talks about increase scaling up of a spon people are talking about the scaling up of Iration the O2 but that will lead to the change in the design of the Sparger so as an engineer I understand the O2 that what biochemical guys or biochemical engineer is interested in the O2 he or she will come and say hey bro I need this I say okay fine I have to redesign the sparer as an engineer I would love to do that that’s my area of Interest how to redesign the sparer to make sure that you able to maintain the O2 that you require now if the cellular environment is maintained that will impact your cell growth viabilities nutrient uptake and waste accumulation that will also look into your product concentration and the product quality maintaining all of this is your primary motor with respect to scale up now determining the derived parameters in reference to those would be your calculate your agitation regime so you have to look at your Ed size the power density the tip speed the mixing time the K and the turbulent Shear Force then you calculate so you once you have estimated you again calculate at your Iration regime you have your porosity spargers air flow spargers oxygen flow spargers then you have another second round of perity spargers or air flow spargers you have if you need more and a eration sorry agitation Iration regime for a targeted scale determination has to be determined depending upon O2 CO2 removal mixing time tip speed these are the main ones this is an example so if you are scaling up a 1 lit bioreactor to 100 lit volume based bioreactor so the volume is pi T1 2 by 4 so T1 is your diameter for the smaller one so Pi d by 4 right d ² by 4 H1 H1 is your height for a small one so you’re looking at s this s is the parameter that we use for scale up this is also called a scale up parameter from the geometry perspective so you’re looking at scale up from uh from the diameters of the spargers sorry of the SP for the impeller you’re looking at the the diameter of the vessel you’re also looking at the distance of the impeller the tip of the impeller and the base does that impact the speed of the impeller the distance at which it is placed that will impact your mixing that will impact your mixing so a single scale ratio s this is called your single scale ratio s defines the relative magnitude of all linear Dimensions between the large and the small scale okay so volume one is given as this volume two is for the larger one if you take a ratio of volume two and volume 1 the S value for your case should be 100 to^ 1X 3 if you make it a 10 lit let’s say every place where you have 100 will become a 10 so this will become 10 1×3 10 are easier to work for one you go to 10 10 to to 100 100,000 an increment of 10 makes your life much more easier let good any questions no question now the scale of strategies deep speed so tip speed is defined as the tangential velocity of an impeller at a point on its tip the tip speed is a function of the RPM revolutions per minute and the DI diameter of the impeller so diameter of the impeller or the size of the impeller will Define the tip speed so the tip speed is pi DN the D is your impellar diameter and N is the impellar agitation rate so the RPM that you’re talking about the criteria is you ensure the L by D the length by diameter to be the same in both cases so L by D in a small scale L by D in the large scale the agitators should be identical should be identical they might not be identical depending upon the how big an agitation system you go to or what type of design you all had before it doesn’t take into account the impeller design at all this one doesn’t take into account the impeller design so if you have a specific impeller with a twisted hook at one end you might want to have the same in the other one sometimes it’s possible sometimes it’s not possible so when that happens you have to redesign your smaller one with a different impeller and then see if that can be used or you have to compare again so you take that Twisted one you still think that it’s a flat and then you use the flat one on the other side and then compare the performance the productivity if it is comparable you’re good to go if it is is not comparable don’t go with it now the other scaleup strategy involves the power per unit volume the W per meter cube the power per unit volume sometimes referred to as power density is a power output for a given volume of culture so impeller design fluid density and the agitation rates are considered in the power per unit volume so your NP is the impellar power in number row is your fluid density N3 or n to^ 3 n is your impeller agitation rate the D is your impeller diameter the V is a liquid working volume and the P not is a ungassed power input this power input is just with respect to ration or agitation it’s just agitation okay there’s no irration yet it’s just agitation so larger the fermentor larger the agitation system that you use larger the amount of power that you’re going to consume redesign it you might be able to make it cheaper questions now shall I continue the other scale of strategy comes for the K so she was right you have K tip speed power density I’m going to put you on place don’t worry about that so tip speed power density k k is for the areation now tip speed power density is mostly for the agitation or the design of the geometry tip speed for with respect to Geometry also power density is with the impeller the agitation purpose K is with respect to oxygen Mass transfer coefficient so this is a parameter that controls the rate of how oxygen transitions from the gas phase into the liquid phase the intent is sufficient o or air delivery is required to support cell growth the metabolic pathways or cell metabolism itself the protein Productions protein Productions requires oxygen if you’re using the host that requires oxygen it is also to prevent excessive CO2 in the media which can impact critical performance end points So Physical K are determined by various Power by volume uh ratios you can use and the gas flow rates the vbms using the static gasing out method you know what the static gasing out method is what is it you have the mic wait somebody give the mic uh first of all we Supply the gas then we allow the bacteria to or microb to utilize the complete amount of gas and then we sparge again then we know how much gas was utilized okay now there are different way methods to measure the K one method I remember is you estimate the amount of oxygen that is there at the beginning of the fermenter as you passing in and then you measure how much is coming out so that will give you the difference of how much oxygen is required another one is where you pass in the oxygen you let the uh the growth and then you pass mer the nitrogen to remove all that oxygen and then you estimate then you pass the oxygen again that’s the static Dynamic guessing that’s the one right the static and dynamic one okay and also there is sodium sulfite oxidation method that I’m not aware of I know about these two that’s what I have read in my undergrad I have not used them yet but those are the ones we oh no for the K we have used the static one anyways so so the K is defined as oxygen transfer rate divided by the do which is your dissolve oxygen dissolve oxygen saturation concentration so OTR divided by the C star biological Kaa depends on the Clone and maximum viable cell concentration so you remember that x value that we have looked at how we estimate how much biomass we can generate with respect to the oxygen concentration that we have and if we have a specific biomass concentration how to estimate how much oxygen we require we did that back equation it was also there so K bio specifically for biological purposes would be your oxygen uptake rate divided by the dissolve oxygen saturation concentration o Max divided by the C star the oxygen uptake rate is not not known at all times sometimes it’s not known what will you do in that case you run the system is is learned by experience so you have to estimate it experimentally that’s why fermentation is not successful in the very first go that you go through it takes time for the fermentation to build up once you are set with all the parameters for your fermentation system you’re in the best condition possible so to prevent oxygen limitation available k for a bioreactor design should be superior to the biological K demand of the cell lines in culture that means your OTR should always be higher than your Ur as simple as that your OTR has to be greater than Ur clear up to here now what are the difficulties with respect to your scaleup if I’m looking from the geometric similarity large bio reactors are physically different from small ones they are physically different from the small world so it’s there’s nothing else I can talk about in that they are just physically different so sometimes it’s not that viable when you’re trying to do the the the scale up it’s not easy mixing time the fluid dynamics V vary in large scale bi reactors causing differences in mixing times due to size and geometry variations the power input per volume difficult to maintain consistent power input per unit volume due to the equipment constraints and the fluid property differences it changes the fluid properties will change depending on the volume oxygen Mass transfer coefficient larger bi reactors can have reduced oxygen Mass transfer coefficients why limitation in gas liquid interaction impacting cell growth and product yield so finding the appropriate size it’s not like that hey I have been successful in this 10 lit bi reactor in my lab let’s go and make 100,000 lit by reactor it doesn’t work like that you go from 10 L Max you go up to 200 L you try in that if it works perfect if you can scale that up then you go for 600 L you don’t go 100,000 immediately you have to be very cautious because as you scale up the difficulties will increase so you only go up to the extent where you know that you’re going to get the maximum productivity okay the tip speed the larger bio reactors require larger impellers resulting in variations in tip speed compared to small vessels affecting the sheer stress and the cell Behavior it will not mix properly cell clusters might appear homogeneity cannot be maintained all of this comes into picture when you’re looking at from the difficulty for the scale of purpose now this is an example where you’re looking at scaleup strategies for let’s say if you’re doing antibi antibodies uh production or the viral proteins or the cell production so if you’re looking at antibodies so production of monoclonal or polyclonal antibodies for therapy diagnosis or research you use Mamon cells example would be the CH cells which are your Mamon cells the process involves cell growth antibody expression and purification the emphasis for this type of fermentation is on the mass transfer for nutrient and oxygen supply so that’s our core focus when we are looking at mumon cells sheer force management to protect fragile antibody producing cells so your agitation you have to be very careful about it because it might break the cells which are going to produce your antibodies so depending on the type of product you’re going to make your scaleup practices will also change clear or the choice of design of B reactor will also change let’s go on the virus side so virus production involves the manufacturing of viral vectors which are used in gene therapy to deliver genetic materials into the target cells production of viral vectors often using aderant or suspension cell cultures example is given to you here the process involves involves transection viral replication and purification steps crucial focus is on controlling Mass transfer for efficient nutrient Supply sheer force management is essential to preserve the integrity and productivity of the viral vectors again agitation has to be very controlled in this case but you do need the mass transfer right so agitation has to be there to make sure the mixing is there is mix exist for the oxygen to get your OTR to be higher than your Ur similarly on the cell side so cell production for therapies like K cells or the stem cells involves cell expansion and differentiation to generate sufficient numbers of theraputic cells if you looking from the cellular agriculture if I’m looking at stem cells stem cells get differentiated into different types of cells that’s where this type of situation will come if you’re looking from cellular agriculture so during cell production is Cru is critical to optimize Mass transfer for adequate nutrients and oxygen delivery to maintain cell health and function throughout the expansion process additionally managing sheer forces is vital to prevent damage to the cultured cells ensuring they remain viable and functional so for almost all of them O2 agitation is important if you go from small scale to large scale you have to make sure the O2 and the agitation can be maintained you maintain the agitation you maintain your O2 but O2 also involves the sparer right it also involves uh putting in the oxygen in the system mixing will allow to better the OTR right it will also help for the viable growth of the cells so you have to make sure the agitation is proper so that mixing takes place now there are also regulatory aspects to bioprocess design this is the I think the last slide for us today so the regulatory aspects for the bioprocess design involved our product quality and Purity the sterility Assurance the validation and qualification and the scaleup validation these are the three that are the most important so what is about the product quality and Purity consistent bioprocess design is required to achieve rigorous control over the quality and purity of the therapeutic products the core focus of the fermentation industry is not only on food but fermentation is also widely utilized for therapeutic drugs from that perspective the Purity and the quality is primary requirement okay because that’s where the regulatory people will come into picture because the Purity and the quality has to be maintained if it is being used for therapeutic purposes for medicinal purposes the sterility Assurance the maintaining sterility to prevent contamination you have to maintain stability to prevent contamination you cannot expect any contamination anywhere traceability documentation and traceability of each steps in the bio process for product safety and Regulatory Compliance if you’re making any changes to the process parameters those have to be documented because that will lead to changes to the product quality If the product quality changes you have a written documentation to know why you would be able to trace the reasoning for it okay validation and qualification validating and qualifying the bioprocess in producing safe and effective therapies consistently so whenever you’re doing any sort of these bioprocessing they have to be consistent and you can validate them scale of validation requires the scale of procedures are validated and meet quality and safety standards so it’s not like I have one bottle in my room and I go and buy a drum and put everything inside and start doing fermentation in it you have to take into account the safety regulations because if you’re working with microbes some of the microbes that you would be working on let’s say if you’re doing fermentation they’re recombinantly uh generated right so they are genetically modified so if those microbes if God forbid if they are pathogenic in nature what will happen things can go wrong so you have to very careful when you’re trying to do the design of these Z cool I hope you have learned something with respect to your bioreactor design and Analysis till now with respect to scaleup the batch design the FED batch design the mass transfer the heat transfer we also had an amazing time discussing About Cellular agriculture the Precision fermentation and not so amazing time thinking about synthetic biology systems biology and enzyme engineering why I said not so wonderful because I felt that I would have given you more information I should have been more prepared for it but I felt that that way that I should have been more prepared but I hope you enjoyed okay I wish that you can work on your case studies case study one and case study two and please try to submit it today in the evening so that we can assemble all the presentations and that would be so we we have to assemble it with respect to the case study one and the case study 2 when you come tomorrow you’ll be presenting all the case study one in one of the sessions and all the case study two in the other session and then we’ll have this type of conversation where we’ll have back and forth why you chose this particular host what was the requirement of this particular host with this is necessary that is necessary we’ll be looking at all of that any questions for me before we end the session today you all look hungry so thank you that will be the end for today’s session

NEOM makes significant investment in biomanufacturing, marking a new chapter in its innovative green economy initiatives – Arabian Business: Latest news on the Middle East, real estate, finance, and more.

The NEOM Investment Fund (NIF) has invested in Liberation Labs, a global leader in precision-fermentation biomanufacturing, to support Topian, NEOM’s food company, in designing and developing an advanced precision-fermentation facility in Saudi Arabia. Liberation Labs develops and operates purpose-built biomanufacturing facilities that use precision fermentation to produce basic food ingredients. This investment marks a significant step in NEOM’s journey to become a global hub for sustainable food production. The partnership will enable Topian to produce high-quality alternative proteins efficiently and sustainably, reducing food imports and improving food security, while also creating new economic opportunities and high-skilled jobs. The investment embodies NIF’s role as a strategic investor and ecosystem developer, laying the groundwork for scalable solutions that will benefit Topian’s business and advance Saudi Arabia’s position as a leader in advanced food biomanufacturing. The collaboration will redefine the future of food production, offering a scalable and sustainable solution to traditional food production methods.

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Here is one possible rewritten version of the line: Korean Startup Secures $9 Million Investment for Precision-Fermented Grape Yeast Proteins

Intake, a South Korean food tech company, has secured ₩13.5 billion ($9.2 million) in Series C funding to commercialize its precision-fermented dairy, meat, and egg proteins. The company, backed by CJ Investment, HB Investment, and other investors, has developed a yeast strain from locally grown grapes that can produce proteins with 1.5 times the protein of traditional yeast. This strain will be used to create “first-generation protein powders” for “second-generation alternative proteins” like dairy, meat, and egg alternatives.

The company is working on several protein suites, including heme protein, which gives beef its red color and flavor, and albumen, or egg white protein. Intake plans to commercialize its products in the US market by 2026, starting with its whey protein replacer, which is currently in its early commercialization phase. The company’s B2B business will continue to focus on providing protein ingredients to manufacturers.

With the new funding, Intake aims to accelerate its R&D and global infrastructure expansion. The company’s existing businesses, including hydration brand Vital Water and plant-based meat brand Innocent, generated ₩22.4 billion ($15.2 million) in revenue last year. Intake is also involved in a government-backed project to develop plant-based and cultivated fish products.

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Intake secures $9.2 million to accelerate precision fermentation breakthroughs

Here is a summarized version of the content in 200 words:

Intake, a South Korean company specializing in precision fermentation food technology, has secured $9.2 million in Series C funding from seven institutional investors, led by CJ Investment. This brings the company’s total funding to $20 million. Founded in 2013, Intake has developed yeast-based solutions for sustainable protein sources, with revenue increasing 30% to $15.2 million in 2024. The funding will be used for R&D, global infrastructure expansion, and commercialization of microbial-based alternative proteins. Intake’s patented yeast strain boasts 1.5 times the protein content of conventional yeast, positioning it to tap into the $35 trillion global protein market. The company is also developing Hemeprotein, a flavor component traditionally derived from meat and egg albumin, through precision fermentation. Intake is committed to advancing microbial-based alternative food technologies to provide consumers with healthy and environmentally-friendly options. With this funding, the company aims to finalize its core microbial-based alternative food technologies and establish itself as a leader in the alternative food sector.

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Partnership announced between Nourish Ingredients and CABIO Biotech to bring precision fermentation fats to the global market at commercial scale.

Nourish Ingredients, an Australian startup, has successfully completed its first commercial production of Tastilux, a potent meaty fat, in partnership with Chinese biotech company CABIO Biotech. This achievement marks a significant breakthrough in precision fermentation, demonstrating the commercial viability of producing animal-free fats at a low cost. Nourish Ingredients has increased its production capacity by 1700% and meets 170,000 tons of end-product demand. This milestone validates the company’s fermentation process and solidifies its partnership with CABIO Biotech.

Tastilux is a game-changer in the plant-based industry, offering rich, meaty flavors and textures that are unmatched by traditional alternatives. The product has been tested and proven to deliver exceptional flavor stability, satisfying customers with its deep, meaty richness from the first bite to the last.

Nourish Ingredients plans to ship the first batch to customers across three continents, marking the beginning of a future where sustainable food is accessible to everyone. This partnership with CABIO Biotech has enabled the company to deliver its innovative ingredients at scale, paving the way for a new industry standard in precision-fermented fats.

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Sustainable food production: cell-based innovations and precision fermentation for safe and high-quality food, as implemented by the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations.

Cell-based food production involves using cells from animals, plants, or microorganisms to produce food products, ingredients, or additives. Precision fermentation is a process that uses microorganisms to produce specific products through controlled systems. The global demand for proteins and nutrients is driving innovation in food production, and food safety authorities are working to address the potential implications. The Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) is collaborating with stakeholders to advance knowledge and develop regulatory frameworks.

The FAO has published several reports and held stakeholder meetings on cell-based food safety, including a publication on food safety aspects of cell-based food and a webinar report. The organization is also facilitating an informal technical working group for government sector regulatory experts to exchange information.

The FAO is also developing a literature synthesis on precision fermentation and has published reports on stakeholder meetings in Canada, Israel, and China. The organization is working to advance knowledge and develop regulatory frameworks for cell-based food production and precision fermentation.

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FAO forecasts significant potential for precision fermentation to unlock a safer and more sustainable food future.

Here is a summary of the text in 200 words:

The Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) has released a report on “Precision Fermentation – With a Focus on Food Safety” by Drs. Sturme, van der Berg, and Kleter from Wageningen Food Safety Research. The report examines the intricacies of precision fermentation, a new method of food production that uses microorganisms to create traditional food compounds in a controlled environment. Fermentation processes are performed in bioreactors, similar to big beer-brewing tanks, using microorganisms such as bacteria, yeasts, or algae.

The report covers the three phases of precision fermentation (technology development, upstream fermentation, and downstream processing), and includes three case studies highlighting the practical applications of this technology. The report also summarizes the outcomes of two online regulatory consultations with over 100 experts, collecting information on food safety frameworks from 35 jurisdictions.

The document serves as a guide for food safety competent authorities worldwide to understand and ensure the safety of food products derived from precision fermentation. It provides a valuable reference point for countries to learn from good practices and lessons learned, and lays the groundwork for future regulatory actions. The report can be downloaded on the FAO website.

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Protein-Rich Dairy Formulations: precision-crafted, high-performance dairy protein solutions

The Verley functional dairy protein range is a series of precision-fermented solutions designed to overcome the limitations of traditional dairy and plant-based products. The range includes three varieties: FermWhey Native, FermWhey MicroStab, and FermWhey Gel, each suited for different applications. FermWhey Native is targeted towards sports nutrition, while MicroStab is suitable for UHT beverages and fresh dairy products, and Gel is designed for spoonable dairy and cheese products. According to CEO Stéphane Mac Millan, precision fermentation has the potential to revolutionize the food industry, and Verley’s patented functionalization technologies allow for the development of proteins with improved functionality, including 11% more leucine than native WPI and 50% more than soy alternatives. This innovation has the potential to significantly impact the health and wellness industry, particularly in sports nutrition.

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Next year, our business operations will generate a sustainable profit.

The EVERY Co, a company that produces egg proteins through precision fermentation, aims to have “profitable unit economics” next year as it increases its manufacturing capacity to meet growing demand. The company’s technology uses yeast to express proteins found in eggs, and it has received “no questions” letters from the FDA for its products. The EVERY Co has developed two main products: OvoPro, which replaces the functionality of egg whites, and OvoBoost, a highly soluble protein that is bio-identical to a glycoprotein found in egg white. The company’s pricing model is based on the functionality of ovalbumin, which is responsible for most of the binding, emulsification, foaming, and gelation properties of egg whites. This means that customers are not paying a premium for OvoPro, as they can use less of it to achieve the same results as egg whites. The company offers labeling options such as “animal-free egg white protein” and “egg white from yeast,” and it expects to produce in the hundreds of tons next year.

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At the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations, we focus on the safety and quality of cell-based food and precision fermentation.

The article discusses cell-based food production, which involves using cells from animals, plants, or microorganisms to produce food products, ingredients, or additives. The article also mentions precision fermentation, which uses microorganisms to produce specific target products. As the global demand for proteins and specific nutrients grows, many in the agrifood sector are looking into opportunities to expand the scope of diverse food production systems. To address the potential food safety implications, food safety authorities are working to develop regulatory frameworks that protect consumers. The Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) has been working to advance knowledge in this area, collaborating with stakeholders and organizing meetings and publications. The article mentions various reports, including a literature synthesis on precision fermentation, a factsheet on food safety aspects of cell-based food, and reports on stakeholder meetings and side events.

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Plant-based dairy alternative company launches US debut of protein-rich whey products

French precision fermentation startup Bon Vivant has rebranded to Verley and launched a range of functional animal-free whey proteins. The company’s new portfolio, FermWhey, is based on recombinant beta-lactoglobulin protein, which is produced through precision fermentation. The FermWhey line includes three products: Native, MicroStab, and Gel, each with unique properties for different applications. The products are designed to offer superior nutrition, stability, and functionality, making them suitable for a range of food and beverage applications.

Verley’s technology allows for the production of whey protein with enhanced protein stability, gelling properties, and foaming properties. The company claims that its products require 81% less water, 99% less land, and 72% fewer greenhouse gas emissions to produce, making it a more sustainable option.

The company has already secured contract manufacturing partnerships to scale up production and is working with dairy and ingredient companies to bring its solutions to market. Verley is also seeking FDA approval for its FermWhey ingredients, with an expected approval letter this year.

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The UK government has committed £1.4 million to bolster its precision fermentation capabilities, marking a significant investment in cutting-edge technology.

The UK government has invested £1.4m in a new innovation hub to support the Food Standards Agency (FSA) in advancing its expertise in new technologies like precision fermentation. This technology uses microorganisms to produce ingredients such as dairy proteins, allowing for the creation of plant-based products that mimic the taste and texture of animal-based foods. The global precision fermentation market is expected to reach $34.2bn by 2031. The UK government’s investment will enhance the FSA’s risk assessment capabilities and provide regulatory clarity for start-ups seeking to sell precision-fermented products in the UK. The Good Food Institute (GFI) Europe welcomed the funding, citing its potential to make the UK a world leader in food innovation while maintaining safety regulations. This initiative is separate from the FSA’s regulatory sandbox for cultivated meat, which aims to expand knowledge about this product.

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Marble Invests in Capacity Building to Enhance Accuracy in Fermentation-Based Fatty Acid Production

Melt&Marble, a company that specializes in precision-fermented fats, has announced the addition of two new leaders to its team. Tue Hodal, a veteran of industrial biotech and pharma, has joined as Chief Technology Officer (CTO). Prior to this, he held high-level positions at companies such as Chr. Hansen, Novo Nordisk, and Lundbeck. As CTO, Hodal will optimize bioprocesses and downstream operations to support large-scale commercial production. Paulo Teixeira, previously the Chief Innovation Officer at Mycorena, has been appointed as Product Manager. He will focus on shaping the company’s product development strategy, including enhancing the taste and mouthfeel of alternative food products. Melt&Marble’s technology uses precision fermentation to create tailored fats, which are designed for various industries, including food and personal care. The company has already demonstrated the scalability of its production process, with plans to expand to thousands of liters per batch this year. The new hires are expected to support the company’s growth and partnerships, including a €2.76 million grant from the European Union and a partnership with Finnish food company Valio.

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The announcement is made: Americas Finalists and Winners Revealed

Hydrosome Labs, a Chicago-based start-up, has won the first heat of the Global Food Tech Awards 2025, using a natural, chemical-free microbubble process to enhance fermentation performance. The company’s technology uses ultrafine bubbles and nanobubbles to improve precision fermentation capacity and accelerate cell growth. The Global Food Tech Awards aims to recognize innovative food technology and drive innovation in the industry. The competition attracted a strong field of entries, which were evaluated by a panel of five expert judges. Hydrosome Labs’ win was praised for its simplicity, scalability, and potential applications. Two runners-up, Careit and Marine Biologics, were also recognized for their innovative approaches to reducing food waste and transforming seaweed into a programmable biomass. The awards will continue with the EMEA and APAC heats, with the overall winner to be announced in December.

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The precision fermentation market is expected to surge to a value of USD 48.16 by [year]. Note: I added the year to provide more context and clarity, but you can adjust this if you need a different format. Let me know if you have any further requests!

The Precision Fermentation Market is expected to grow at a CAGR of 40.56% from 2024 to 2031, reaching a market size of $48.16 billion by 2031. The market focuses on the use of microbial hosts to produce specific ingredients like proteins, enzymes, and fats through controlled fermentation. Growing demand for alternative proteins, advancements in biotechnology, and increasing investments in sustainable food solutions are driving market expansion.

The report highlights key players in the market, such as Geltor, Perfect Day, and Impossible Foods, among others. Recent industry developments include Nestle’s launch of its first-ever dairy protein powder produced through precision fermentation and Vivici’s plans to manufacture industrial-scale whey protein using precision fermentation.

The report also provides information on the market’s regional analysis, covering North America, Europe, Asia-Pacific, Middle East and Africa, and South America. The report is beneficial for businesses seeking to understand the global precision fermentation market, its trends, and growth opportunities. By purchasing this report, companies can gain insights to navigate the market and make informed decisions.

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At the Global Food Tech Awards Americas, Hydrosome Labs’ innovative ultrafine bubbles made a splash, winning top honors.

Hydrosome Labs, a nanotechnology company, has won the first round of the Global Food Tech Awards with its innovative ultrafine bubbles. These bubbles, which are smaller than a champagne bubble, are capable of delivering nutrients and gasses to cells, boosting production of precision fermentation and improving nutritionals. The technology has the potential to alter the texture of food, speed up production, and reduce the need for expensive or less desirable ingredients. The company is exploring the use of different gases, such as those that could enhance taste and sensory experiences, and has found that the addition of ultrafine bubbles in water can help modulate the gut microbiome in a positive way, reducing inflammation. The technology also has potential applications in the cosmetics industry to improve the feel and permeability of topical products. The company is partnering with celebrity Cindy Crawford to launch a line of Meaningful Beauty products using its technology. The Global Food Tech Awards will continue with the EMEA heat in March 2025 and the APAC heat in August, with the global champion to be announced at the end of the year.

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The fermentation ingredients market is expanding at a 44% Compound Annual Growth Rate (CAGR), fueling high demand for precision fermentation solutions.

The global precision fermentation ingredients market is growing rapidly, with a value of $2.8 billion in 2023 and projected to reach $36.3 billion by 2030, at a CAGR of 44.0%. The market is driven by shifting consumer preferences towards veganism, increased protein consumption, and investments in cutting-edge innovations. Companies like Geltor, Perfect Day, and Impossible Foods are leveraging technological advancements to develop specialized food protein constituents through precision fermentation. The North American market is expected to maintain its dominance, driven by increasing consumer awareness, preference for healthier food ingredients, and the growing trend of veganism. The cosmetics & others segment is projected to have the highest CAGR, driven by the demand for fermented cosmetic products that offer nutrient absorption and skincare benefits. The meat & seafood alternatives segment is also experiencing significant growth, driven by the increasing demand for plant-based proteins and fats that replicate the taste, texture, and nutritional profile of meat products.

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From plant-based dairy alternatives to lab-grown proteins, fermentation gets a new stamp of approval

Swiss organization V-Label has launched a new certification label, F-Label, for fermentation-derived proteins. The label is designed to address confusion about vegan-friendly labels on these products. F-Label is the world’s first certification mark for products made through precision, biomass, and gaseous fermentation, as well as cell-free synthesis. The label verifies that the production process is animal-free, without antibiotics, and the final product is free from genetically modified organisms (GMOs).

The first recipient of the F-Label is Chilean food tech startup Luyef Biotechnologies, which makes precision-fermented nutrients to enhance cultivated meat. Marketed as TAMEE, this is a heme protein that enhances the color, aroma, and flavor of meat analogues.

V-Label’s founder, Renato Pichler, emphasized that the label aims to provide transparency and build trust with consumers and industry partners. He noted that regulatory approval varies by region and application, and the F-Label does not replace regulatory oversight.

Pichler also highlighted that the self-affirmed GRAS (Generally Recognized as Safe) rule in the US, which allows companies to self-affirm their ingredients as safe without formal FDA notification, may be eliminated. This could have significant implications for fermentation startups, which may have to adapt to more rigorous oversight and slower approvals.

Overall, the F-Label aims to clarify the differences between vegan and animal-free labels and provide consumers with more accurate information about the production process and ingredients.

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Marking a new frontier in precision fermentation, the launch of the F-Label reaches a crucial milestone.

V-Label, a labeling certification, has introduced the F-Label, the world’s first certification for precision fermentation and other innovative animal-free production technologies. This comes after the success of C-Label, a certification for cultivated meat. The F-Label aims to enhance consumer transparency and trust in food products made using advanced fermentation techniques such as biomass fermentation, syngas fermentation, and cell-free synthesis. The certification ensures that products meet strict criteria, including animal-free production, non-GMO status, and antibiotic-free processes. The F-Label is designed to give consumers confidence in their food choices and support ethically and sustainably produced products. The certification is particularly relevant in the alternative protein sector, where clarity on definitions such as “vegan” can vary. The launch of F-Label marks a significant moment for the food industry, with potential to transform food production through precision fermentation. The certification aims to reshape consumer perceptions and support innovations that prioritize ethical and sustainable practices.

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Here’s a rewritten version of the headline: Vivici Clears FDA Pathway for Cow-Free Whey with Unconditional Approval

Vivici, a company specializing in animal-free dairy alternatives, has received a “no questions” letter from the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) for its cow-free whey product. This milestone comes amidst the FDA’s overhaul of its Generally Recognized as Safe (GRAS) notification process. A “no questions” letter is a favorable designation from the FDA, indicating that the agency has reviewed Vivici’s submission and has no further questions or concerns regarding the safety of their product.

The FDA’s GRAS reform aims to modernize the notification process, making it more efficient and transparent. Vivici’s success in securing a “no questions” letter demonstrates the company’s compliance with the FDA’s rigorous guidelines. The achievement enables Vivici to market its animal-free whey product in the US, offering a sustainable and dairy-free alternative for the food industry. This development has significant implications for the dairy-free and plant-based food sector, as well as for consumers seeking to reduce their environmental impact and adapt to changing consumer preferences.

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Sennos, formerly Precision Fermentation, launches new chapter with strategic restructuring and appointment of a team of industry experts to fuel global expansion and success.

Sennos, a leading company in sensing, analytics, and automation for the fermentation and fluidics industries, is rebranding to further expand its impact beyond the brewing and beverage industry. The company’s platform is designed to help businesses in various sectors, including alternative food production, biopharmaceuticals, and alternative fuel development, achieve consistency, quality, and control in their manufacturing processes. Sennos has assembled a world-class leadership team to drive innovation and success, including its Founder and CEO, Jared Resnick, and other experienced professionals. The company will be demonstrating its next-generation solutions at the Craft Brewers Conference in April 2025. Sennos’ flagship product, BrewIQ, provides real-time fermentation telemetry and actionable insights, enabling businesses to operate at peak efficiency and avoid product loss. Founded in 2017, Sennos has revolutionized fermentation monitoring with its patented remote sensor platform and AI-driven data analytics. By transforming raw data into a powerful tool for quality control and operational excellence, Sennos is bridging the art of brewing with state-of-the-art technology to meet the high expectations of discerning consumers.

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Unlocking Opportunities in the Fermented Ingredients Market from 2024 to 2030: Precision Fermentation Advancements Unlock New Possibilities for Customized Fermented Compounds and Functional Additives I made the following changes: * Simplified the language to make it more concise and clear * Rephrased the sentence to make it more engaging and concise * Used more dynamic verbs like Unlocking to convey a sense of excitement and possibility * Emphasized the benefits of precision fermentation by highlighting New Possibilities for customized fermented compounds and functional additives.

The “Fermented Ingredients – Global Strategic Business Report” report provides an in-depth analysis of the global fermented ingredients market, which is expected to reach $79.3 billion by 2030, growing at a CAGR of 8.8% from 2024 to 2030. The market is driven by rising consumer demand for functional foods, advancements in fermentation technology, a shift towards clean-label and natural products, and sustainability goals. Fermented ingredients are used in various applications, including food, beverages, animal feed, and nutraceuticals, and are expected to play a key role in the future of the food and beverage industry.

Technological advancements have improved the efficiency, quality, and application range of fermented ingredients. Probiotics, kombucha, and fermented soy products are popular choices for individuals seeking dietary solutions that promote digestive health and wellness. The report highlights the role of health trends and sustainability concerns in shaping the fermented ingredients market, with consumers prioritizing natural, nutritious, and environmentally friendly ingredients.

The report provides comprehensive market data, regional analysis, and company profiles, with a focus on major players such as Ajinomoto Corporation Inc., Allied Bakeries, Angelyeast Co., Ltd., and more. The report also provides insights into the amino acids, organic acids, industrial enzymes, antibiotics, polymers, and other types of fermented ingredients, as well as their applications in food and beverages, feed, pharmaceuticals, personal care, and paper.

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The world of precision fermentation is making headlines with the latest news in the field.

The global precision fermentation market is expected to grow at a CAGR of 33.01% from 2023 to 2029, driven by increasing demand for sustainable and alternative protein sources. Precision fermentation is the process of using microorganisms to create various products, such as food ingredients, drugs, and biofuels. The method uses genetically modified microorganisms to maximum production processes and product quality, unlike traditional fermentation which uses natural organisms. The growing use of alternative protein sources, such as plant-based and lab-grown products, is a major driver of the market. Precision fermentation allows for the production of plant-based proteins, dairy alternatives, and cultured meat, which are sustainable and can meet the growing demand for protein without the need for animal husbandry. The market is also expected to expand into new applications, including cosmetics, textiles, and agriculture, where precision fermentation can provide sustainable and eco-friendly alternatives to traditional methods. Overall, precision fermentation is expected to play a key role in the development of sustainable and alternative products that meet the growing demand for healthy, personalized, and sustainable food and other products.

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Pow.Bio officially opens its state-of-the-art continuous fermentation demo facility on the West Coast, in California.

Pow.Bio, a startup that is revolutionizing the field of precision fermentation, has opened a new 25,000 sq ft facility in Alameda, California. The facility is equipped with a fleet of dual-chamber continuous fermentation systems and proprietary software, allowing for the production of hundreds of kilos of ingredients. CEO Shannon Hall believes that the new facility will help companies overcome the high costs and prolonged development timelines associated with traditional batch precision fermentation processes.

Pow.Bio’s continuous fermentation process decouples the growth of microorganisms from the production of target ingredients, solving problems such as contamination and genetic drift. The company’s technology enables the production of large quantities of ingredients without the need for traditional batch processing, resulting in significant cost savings and increased efficiency.

The facility is designed to be capex-light, allowing customers to integrate the technology into their existing infrastructure with minimal modifications. This makes it possible for companies to shift from batch or fed-batch to continuous operation without significant capital expenditures, resulting in faster and lower-cost production.

Pow.Bio works with customers of all sizes, from startups to publicly traded multinationals, and has a proven track record of delivering results quickly and deploying its solution within existing systems. The company’s technology has the potential to revolutionize the biomanufacturing industry by enabling the production of high-quality ingredients at a lower cost and faster rate.

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Unlocking the power of precision fermentation to sustainably feed a growing world.

In the science fiction world, the idea of eating synthetic food grown in vats is a common theme. However, what if I told you that this technology is already here and has been around for decades? Precision fermentation, a process that uses microorganisms to produce food and other products, has been used to make foods like cheese, wine, and beer. This technology has the potential to revolutionize the way we produce food.

With the rise of CRISPR, genetic engineering is now easier and more accessible, allowing for a wide range of new products to be created. Companies like Impossible Foods and Perfect Day are already producing plant-based meat and dairy products, such as vegan milk and cheese, using precision fermentation. Other companies are working on creating egg substitutes and even protein-rich flour made from hydrogen-eating bacteria.

The benefits of precision fermentation are numerous. It’s a cruelty-free and environmentally friendly way to produce food, reducing the need for animal agriculture, which is a significant contributor to climate change. It’s estimated that 1/3 of the world’s arable land is used to grow feed for animals, and that livestock production is responsible for 14.5% of global greenhouse gas emissions.

However, there are concerns about the lack of transparency and control over these new technologies. With companies keeping their methods and production processes secret, it’s difficult to assess the true environmental impact of precision fermentation. Dr. Julie Guthman, a professor of social sciences, notes that Silicon Valley food tech entrepreneurs are more concerned with making a profit than with being transparent and accountable to the public.

Ultimately, the future of food production is likely to be a combination of conventional and advanced technologies. As we move forward, it’s essential to balance the need for innovation with the need for transparency and regulation to ensure that this technology is used responsibly and sustainably.

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Unlocking the Secrets of the Microbial World: A Leap Forward in Fermentation Technology

Companies like Creamilux are using precision fermentation to create dairy-like products, including alternatives to milk, cheese, and butter. These products, such as Tastilux and Creamilux, can help simplify food manufacturers’ formulas by providing potent ingredients at low inclusion rates. The technology can also reduce the need for hydrogenation, chemical additives, and artificial flavors. Other companies, like Oobli and TurtleTree, are using precision fermentation to create products like chocolate and lactoferrin, a milk protein with potential health benefits. The development of these products has led to the formation of the Precision Fermentation Alliance, a group of nine companies working together to ensure that regulators use a science-based approach in regulating the technology. However, there are challenges to scaling up production, particularly for ingredients that require large quantities, such as bulk alternative proteins. Despite these challenges, precision fermentation holds great promise for creating sustainable and animal-free food options.

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From proteins to AI, February sees investments in cutting-edge cleanrooms and advanced factories.

Vivici, a Dutch protein startup, has raised €32.5 million in funding to produce high-quality proteins without using animals through precision fermentation. The investment will enable the company to expand internationally, launch a second dairy protein ingredient, and build long-term production capacity. The Eindhoven University of Technology (TU/e) has also announced a €200 million investment to construct a new lab building and cleanroom, which will be used for semiconductor research and education. The European Union has unveiled a €200 billion investment in AI gigafactories, with the aim of establishing four facilities to train highly complex AI models. Finally, Sirius Medical, a spin-off of the Netherlands Cancer Institute, has secured €10 million in funding to advance its surgical marker navigation portfolio and expand its global presence. The funding will improve the company’s system and software, making it more user-friendly and expanding its uses, and strengthen sales and support in new markets. Overall, these investments highlight the significant potential for growth and innovation in various industries, including technology, healthcare, and sustainability.

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Introducing the Allbiotech Bioreactor, a cutting-edge tool for precision fermentation research at an affordable price point.

Spanish biotech startup Allbiotech Biotechnologies has launched its Genesys V1 bioreactor, a lower-cost alternative for precision fermentation research. The bioreactor is designed for early-stage testing, process optimization, and scale-up research in food production and is priced at one-third of traditional pharmaceutical bioreactors. The company aims to make bioreactor technology more accessible to food tech startups, research institutions, and universities. The Genesys V1 bioreactor features a 1-liter glass vessel, integrated sensors, and five peristaltic pumps, making it ideal for precision fermentation applications. Allbiotech was founded in 2024 with the goal of reducing the cost barrier associated with precision fermentation equipment. The company plans to scale its operations through a direct-to-consumer sales model, bypassing traditional distributors and reaching customers through digital channels. This innovation has the potential to democratize access to bioreactor technology, promoting the development of sustainable and sustainable food production methods.

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Precision fermentation is poised to revolutionize the development of game-changing functional foods.

Precision fermentation, a technology that produces protein products, was previously seen as a mid-term alternative to plant-based and lab-grown meat. However, only a few companies, such as Perfect Day, have successfully moved from the tech stage to commercial products. As a result, companies are now focusing on developing high-value products, such as nutrients. One key nutrient that has emerged is lactoferrin, which has antibacterial, antiviral, and anti-inflammatory properties. TurtleTree, a company that uses precision fermentation, has pivoted from developing alternative milk and dairy products to focusing on lactoferrin as its star product. The company aims to use lactoferrin in sports nutrition and target vegan and vegetarian athletes who lack access to dairy-based proteins. Other companies, such as FrieslandCampina and All G Foods, are also working on developing lactoferrin made via precision fermentation. TurtleTree has successfully completed self-GRAS application in the US and partnered with brands like Cadence Cold Brew and Strive to launch products. The company is also set to launch a lactoferrin-containing coffee in Singapore in 2025.

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Vivici secures €32.5 million in its Series A funding to fuel the growth of its precision fermentation capabilities.

Dutch ingredients start-up Vivici has raised €32.5 million in Series A funding to expand its precision fermentation dairy protein business. The funding was led by APG on behalf of pension fund ABP and Invest-NL, with additional support from InnovationQuarter and existing shareholders DSM-Firmenich and Fonterra. Vivici plans to use the investment to enter new international markets, launch its second dairy protein ingredient, and build long-term manufacturing capabilities. The company’s first commercial product, Vivitein BLG, is an isolated whey protein designed to supplement dairy industry protein production, offering significant environmental benefits, including 86% lower water usage and a 68% reduction in carbon footprint. The company aims to expand its product portfolio, with the launch of lactoferrin (Vivitein LF) expected later this year. Vivici’s CEO says the funding demonstrates investors’ confidence in the company’s mission and capabilities, and paves the way for the company to turn precision fermentation into a commercial reality. The company’s product is expected to become a mainstay of consumer protein products, offering a new standard of protein with sustainability, consumer, and commercial benefits.

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Wageningen University prepares next generation of food technology leaders.

Wageningen University & Research (WUR) is launching a master’s course on precision fermentation, starting on March 10, 2025. The course aims to provide students with hands-on experience in precision fermentation, a technology that combines precision biology with traditional fermentation methods to produce specific proteins and compounds identical to those found in animal-based products without the need for traditional agricultural methods. The 8-week course has attracted over 50 students from diverse backgrounds and will cover topics such as bioprocess engineering, food quality design, and food process engineering. The course is well-timed, as the precision fermentation market is projected to grow from $1.6 billion in 2022 to $36.3 billion by 2030. The Netherlands, which has a strong background in biotechnology and food production, has launched two open-access scale-up facilities focused on precision fermentation, positioning it for strong growth in the industry. The course is part of the National Growth Fund project on Cellular Agriculture, which aims to develop the skills needed to contribute to the rapidly evolving sustainable food production landscape.

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A new player in the lactoferrin market is building a precision fermentation facility in the US.

A new company, PFerrinX26, is planning to enter the lactoferrin market by building a precision fermentation facility in the Midwest. Lactoferrin is an iron-binding protein found in mammalian milk, with benefits for human health, but has historically been costly to isolate from milk. The company is backed by Earth First Food Ventures Ltd (EFFV), which has assembled a consortium of players from the big dairy, dextrose providers, off-takers, CPG, and ingredient companies to fund a facility capable of producing 200 tons of bovine lactoferrin in the coming years. The facility will utilize genetically engineered microbes to produce lactoferrin, which can be used in various applications such as cosmetics, adult nutrition, and infant formula. The company aims to reduce costs by using continuous fermentation technology and novel approaches. The market demand for lactoferrin is expected to grow, driven by the increasing popularity of dairy alternatives, the aging population, and the growing demand for protein-enriched foods and supplements.

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Innovative fermented proteins: A novel class of high-quality feed for pets Let me know if you’d like me to make any changes!

The pet food industry is facing increasing pressure to find alternative protein sources due to a constricting supply chain and growing concerns about sustainability. Companies like Bond Pet Foods are using precision fermentation to create nature-identical animal proteins without the use of animals. Rich Kelleman, CEO of Bond Pet Foods, discussed their process at the 2025 Pet Food Conference. They create their proteins by isolating a protein strain responsible for producing skeletal muscle protein, combining it with brewer’s yeast, and fermentation. The resulting protein is flexible and can be incorporated into various pet food formats. Bonde has developed two protein products, a brewed chicken protein and a protein specifically designed for Hill’s Pet Nutrition, which have shown promising nutritional efficacy and environmental benefits. The company is planning to bring its products to market within the next couple of years and is refining its products to create customized solutions for dogs and cats. Bond’s novel approach to protein production has the potential to alleviate the pressure on the protein supply chain and provide pet owners with more sustainable and nutritious options.

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Liberation Labs secures $50.5 million in funding to establish precision fermentation facilities in the US and Saudi Arabia.

Liberation Labs, a US-based biotech manufacturing company, has raised $50.5 million in funding for its precision-fermented foods, with a focus on building large-scale facilities in Richmond, Indiana, and Saudi Arabia. The company aims to commercialize precision-fermented ingredients through a global network of dedicated production plants, which will feature a fit-for-purpose design to enable cost-effective solutions.

The funding round was led by the state-owned NEOM Investment Fund, which provided part of the $31.5 million raised, along with other investors such as Galloway Limited, Meach Cove Capital, and existing investors Agronomics, New Agrarian Capital, and Siddhi Capital. The remaining $19 million comes from insider bridge notes raised last year.

Liberation Labs plans to build a first commercial-scale biomanufacturing plant in Richmond, Indiana, which will have a fermentation capacity of 600,000 liters and will produce between 600 to 1,200 tons of protein annually. The company also intends to build factories in six geographies, starting with a 600,000-liter launch facility and eventually opening a plant with a capacity of four million liters in each market.

The precision fermentation company is also in the late stages of constructing a facility in Saudi Arabia, which will produce “building block ingredients” for food, chemicals, and other industrial products. The company has raised a total of $71.5 million in private capital since its founding in 2022, in addition to $55 million in non-dilutive funding commitments.

The company’s focus on precision fermentation, also known as a biomanufacturing platform, has gained interest from investors and policymakers, with the US Department of Defense providing funding for its projects. The company’s goal is to build a future where precision fermentation proteins can reach industrial scale to meet growing global demand.

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Start-up Precision Fermentation Firm Liberation Labs Raises $50.5 Million to Boost Production Capacity

Liberation Labs, a biotech company, has raised $50.5 million in a convertible note round, bringing its total funding to $75 million. The investment was led by new investors NEOM Investment Fund, Galloway Limited, and Meach Cove Capital, while existing investors Agronomics, New Agrarian Capital, and Siddhi Capital also participated. The funding will be used to complete the company’s first commercial-scale precision fermentation biomanufacturing facility in Richmond, Indiana, which is expected to be operational in 2025. The 600,000-liter facility will produce bio-based materials for food, chemicals, and industrial applications, addressing a supply gap in the US market. The funding will also support the development of a second facility, which could be built with an additional 4-million-liter capacity. The company’s founder and CEO, Mark Warner, sees this as validation of their technology and strategy, while Jim Mellon, director of Agronomics, believes it will help build a future where precision fermentation proteins can meet growing demand globally.

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Nova Scotia Bolsters Precision Fermentation Ecosystem with $1 Million Injection

The Government of Nova Scotia is investing $1,055,000 to expand the capabilities of the Verschuren Centre’s fermentation plant in Cape Breton. The funding will enhance automation, support additional clients, and create skilled jobs in the biomanufacturing sector. The expansion will increase the plant’s client capacity from 40 to 50, allowing it to accommodate more advanced projects and drive further direct investment and job creation. The initiative will also support the development of an in-house training program, focusing on skills development in electronics, digitization, process engineering, and fermentation technology. The Verschuren Centre is a key player in Canada’s biomanufacturing sector, housing a pilot-scale bioreactor and utilizing living systems to produce commercial materials. The investment will help the centre address the demand for sustainable products in the supply chain for Canadian manufacturing, matching assets only available in Europe and Mexico.

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UK start-up Better Dairy leads the charge in precision fermentation, revolutionizing the dairy industry with innovative, cow-free cheese alternatives.

Better Dairy, a UK-based start-up, is developing a cheese and yogurt alternative that is animal-free, healthier, and better for the environment. The company uses precision fermentation to produce animal-free casein, a key milk protein, which allows them to make a variety of dairy products without the need for cows. This technology can produce cheese that tastes, melts, and stretches just like traditional dairy cheese, but with a lower environmental impact. The company plans to sell its proteins to existing manufacturers, enabling them to produce an animal-free cheese that is identical to traditional dairy cheese. Better Dairy’s goal is to reduce the environmental impact of dairy production, which is a significant contributor to greenhouse gas emissions and resource consumption. The company is currently producing its products at a lab scale and plans to increase production capacity and navigate regulatory approval in target markets, including the US. With approval expected by 2027 and 2028, Better Dairy aims to revolutionize the dairy industry and provide a more sustainable alternative for consumers.

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Pioneering a New Era in Cellular Agriculture – Cavendish

Agronomics Limited, a UK-based investment company, is a leading player in the burgeoning cellular agriculture sector. In 2024, the company made significant strides, investing £13.5 million in precision fermentation technologies and cultivated meat innovations. One notable achievement was Meatly’s development of a protein-free culture medium, which reduces the cost of cultivated meat production. The company also secured regulatory approval for its cultivated chicken for pet food, a crucial step towards commercialization. Despite reporting a net unrealised loss of £8.3 million, Agronomics’ portfolio saw positive revaluations of £6.9 million. The company’s diversified portfolio, comprising 30% precision fermentation, 30% cultivated meat, and 16% Liberation Labs, allows it to tap into different market segments and leverage the faster commercialization timeline of precision fermentation technologies. With its focus on sustainability and innovation, Agronomics is well-positioned to capitalize on the growing demand for sustainable food solutions and alternative proteins, making it a compelling investment opportunity for those seeking exposure to this transformative industry.

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Vegan dairy company Those Vegan Cowboys partners with Hochland to pioneer a plant-based casein alternative.

Those Vegan Cowboys (TVC), a Belgian precision fermentation start-up, has partnered with Hochland, a European cheese major, to test its dairy-identical, animal-free casein. Casein is a key component in cheese that makes it stretch and melt. TVC’s casein is produced through precision fermentation, a method that utilizes genetically-modified microbes to produce milk proteins. The partnership builds on TVC’s previous collaborations with other cheese producers, including Dutch cheese maker Westland Cheese. The companies claim that TVC’s casein can stretch better than animal-derived casein and plans to use it in new products. To bring the product to market, TVC needs to obtain regulatory approval, which may take several years. The company expects to file for approval in the US later this year and target the Asian market next. The partnership with Hochland is a significant step towards commercialization and a key milestone in reducing the cost and environmental impact of dairy production.

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New Culture, a pioneering animal-free casein startup, unveils the ingredients behind its innovative Mozzarella alternative.

New Culture, a US-based startup, has revealed the ingredients of its animal-free mozzarella cheese ahead of its launch. The company has developed a method to produce casein, a protein found in milk, using microflora fermentation. This process allows for the creation of a cheese that is identical in taste and texture to traditional mozzarella, but is free from animal products. The ingredients list includes:

* Microflora fermentation broth
* Plant-based starter culture
* Vegetable-based rennet
* Salt
* Water

The company claims that its animal-free mozzarella has a rich, creamy taste and a smooth texture, making it suitable for pizzas, lasagnas, and other dishes. New Culture’s innovative production method has the potential to revolutionize the dairy industry, offering a sustainable and cruelty-free alternative to traditional cheese. The company plans to launch its product in the near future, with the goal of making it widely available in stores and restaurants.

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Natural Colour Enhancers: Fungal Protein Derivatives

Michroma, an Argentine company, is revolutionizing the food colorant industry with its innovative, multifunctional ingredients. Through a precision fermentation process, the company cultivates specialized fungi strains that produce vibrant pigments when fed with affordable feedstocks. With backing from major industry players like General Mills and Dr. Oetker, Michroma has secured $6.4 million in funding to advance its approach to food ingredients. Its flagship product, Red+, offers a game-changing solution for plant-based meat products by incorporating essential amino acids, fiber content, and exceptional stability across various pH and high-temperature conditions. This premium ingredient has broad application potential in beverages, confectionery, and baked goods, making it an attractive option for food manufacturers seeking healthier, trend-setting products.

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Unlocking the Future of Food: Global Insights into the Precision Fermentation Market

The global Precision Fermentation market was valued at $3.16 billion in 2023 and is expected to reach $48.16 billion by 2031, growing at a CAGR of 40.56% during the forecast period. The market focuses on market trends, historical growth rates, technologies, and the changing investment structure. The report highlights the latest market insights, increasing growth opportunities, business strategies, and growth plans adopted by major players. Precision fermentation is an advanced biotechnological process that uses microorganisms to produce specific substances or ingredients with high precision. The market is divided into six major regions: North America, South America, Europe, Asia Pacific, the Middle East, and Africa.

The report provides an analysis of current market dynamics, future developments, and Porter’s Five Forces Analysis. It also lists key players, including Geltor, Perfect Day, Inc., The Every Co., Impossible Foods Inc., and others. The report includes a chapter on industry development, highlighting recent developments and partnerships, such as Nestlé’s launch of precision-fermented dairy protein powder and Perfect Day’s partnership with Unilever’s Breyers to produce lactose-free chocolate. Regional breakdowns are also provided, with a focus on North America, Europe, Asia Pacific, and other regions.

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Pioneering Developments in High-Performance Fermentation Ingredients

The Precision Fermentation Ingredients Market Report 2025-2032 by CoherentMI is a comprehensive analysis of the market, including key trends, upcoming technologies, industry drivers, challenges, regulatory policies, and company profiles. The report provides an in-depth assessment of the market, covering future trends, current growth factors, opinions, facts, and industry-validated market data forecast until 2032.

The report notes that the precision fermentation ingredients market is expected to grow from USD 4.65 billion in 2024 to USD 58.3 billion by 2031, with a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 35.6%. The report also provides insights on market segmentations, including product type, ingredient source, and application. Additionally, the report includes information on leading players, such as Perfect Day Inc., Motif Foodworks, Impossible Foods Inc., and The EVERY Company (Clara Foods), and provides a detailed analysis of their strategies and growth prospects.

The report also includes information on market trends, drivers, and challenges, as well as SWOT analysis, PEST analysis, and Porter’s five force analysis. The report is designed to help businesses make informed decisions and stay ahead of the competition.

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Euro-Investment Bank (EIB) injects €35 million into Formo, enabling the company to scale up its innovative animal-free cheese production.

German food-tech start-up Formo has secured a €35 million loan from the European Investment Bank (EIB) to accelerate the production of its animal-free cheese products. Formo, founded in 2019, uses micro-fermentation and precision fermentation technologies to create its products, including alt-dairy and egg-based products. The loan will enable Formo to further develop and scale its fermentation processes. Formo is currently undergoing regulatory approval for its products in the US and Europe. The company has already launched its micro-fermentation product line, with several flavors of its Frischhain product available in Germany and Austria. Raffael Wohlgensinger, founder of Formo, stated that the EIB’s support is a strong signal for European innovation and confirms the company’s strategy. The EIB loan is part of the InvestEU program, expected to unlock €372 billion in additional investment in new technologies by 2027. This follows Formo’s successful €61 million Series B funding round in September 2024, bringing the company’s total funding to over €135 million.

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Formo secures $36m in venture debt to accelerate the growth of its animal-free fermentation technology.

Formo, a Berlin-based startup, has received a €35 million venture debt loan from the European Investment Bank to scale its fermentation technologies. The company uses microbiology to express dairy proteins like casein via precision fermentation. However, they are using different technology in their first range of cheeses, where they grow natural occurring Aspergillus Oryzae (koji) to make cheese alternatives like Frischhain and Camembritz.

The company produces triple-digit tons of cheese alternatives monthly and plans to triple capacity in the next year. While koji does not offer the same stretchability and meltability performance as traditional casein or whey proteins, Formo plans to launch own consumer products with casein proteins this year.

Formo focuses on partnerships that leverage existing facilities rather than building its own manufacturing setup. On the regulatory front, the company is working on securing self-GRAS status for its casein proteins and plans to add harder cheese features like traditional cheese within its brand range in the near future. The cash injection follows a $61 million series B round and brings total funding to $139 million.

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A novel dairy company, Free French Cow, poised to scale up production at Ajinomoto’s state-of-the-art facility.

A French start-up, called Alt Dairy, is set to expand its animal-free dairy products production at the Ajinomoto plant, a Japanese healthcare and biopharmaceutical firm. Alt Dairy, which specialized in creating free dairy products free from cows milk, will establish a manufacturing center at Ajinomoto to scale up the production of plant-based casein, a whey protein analogue. This protein is commonly found in milk from cows and provides a similar flavor and texture experience in dairy-alternative milk and yogurt drinks.

The startup will use amino acids from genetically modified yeast at the Ajinomoto facilities to produce animal-free casein, allowing mass production and reaching a wider distribution network.

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French brand Bon Vivant secures US clearance for its animal-free whey protein products.

French startup Bon Vivant has received clearance to sell its animal-free whey protein in the US market. The company uses microorganisms to produce a whey protein that is identical to traditional whey protein, but without the need for animal milk. This innovation makes it possible to produce a vegan-friendly alternative to traditional whey protein, which is commonly used in sports nutrition and food products.

Bon Vivant’s product has been recognized by the US authorities, and the company has obtained the necessary approvals to launch its product in the US market. This marks a significant milestone for the company, which has been working to develop a sustainable and animal-friendly alternative to traditional whey protein.

The use of microorganisms to produce whey protein offers several benefits, including reduced environmental impact, lower carbon footprint, and a more sustainable production process. Bon Vivant’s animal-free whey protein is also suitable for individuals with dairy allergies or intolerances, making it a more inclusive option for the food industry. With its US clearance, Bon Vivant is poised to make a significant impact in the global protein market.

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The US lactoferrin market is also a prominent player Let me know if you’d like me to make any further changes!

Lactoferrin is a bioactive protein found in bovine and human milk, used in infant nutrition as well as human and animal nutrition. However, its production process is complex and requires a multi-stage process of extraction, purification, and drying, making it a high-value product. To address this, companies have turned to precision fermentation, using genetically programmed microorganisms to produce proteins without the need for livestock. All G, an Australian company, is one of the pioneers in this space and has achieved self-affirmed GRAS status for animal-free lactoferrin. Their product is designed to mimic the molecular structure and functional properties of bovine lactoferrin, allowing it to align with established consumer acceptance and regulatory pathways. The company plans to commercialize their product, with a production cost lower than that of dairy-derived lactoferrin. However, the challenges to commercialization include education and differentiating the product in a competitive space. The precision fermentation industry is expected to grow in 2025, with premium PF-derived ingredients expanding into mainstream applications driven by consumer demand for transparency, quality, and sustainability.

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The European Union is injecting €5 million into a pioneering fermentation project to revolutionize the production of plant-based cheese alternatives.

The European Union has invested €5 million in a fermentation project to develop better-tasting vegan cheese and kefir alternatives. The project aims to create plant-based products that are indistinguishable from their dairy counterparts in terms of taste, texture, and nutritional value. The funding will support research and development of novel fermentation technologies and microbial strains to improve the production process. The goal is to create a more sustainable and environmentally friendly alternative to traditional dairy products.

The project will focus on developing vegan cheese and kefir products that are not only more sustainable but also more appealing to consumers. The funding will also support the scaling up of production and commercialization of the new products. The project has the potential to revolutionize the dairy industry and provide a more sustainable and environmentally friendly option for consumers.

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