Innovative bioproduction platforms

Advancing novel biomanufacturing capabilities that will reduce the costs of getting bio-based products to market.

The Innovative Bioproduction Platforms (IBP) theme aims to develop novel biomanufacturing capabilities that will reduce the time, financial, and environmental costs of delivering bio-based products to market.

Our approach

This theme integrates microbial strain engineering with bioreactor design to improve production efficiency and deploy novel capabilities to an advanced manufacturing industry.

Strain engineering will include optimising microbes and cell lines to industrial production conditions, as well as domestication of non-model microorganisms with unique traits. Bioreactors will be designed with a systems approach for maximal efficiency gains and include process intensifications (e.g., continuous flow) to reduce run cost, and employ novel feedstocks (e.g., carbon dioxide).

Example projects include:

  • Chassis strains designed for rapid metabolic engineering and deployment
  • Strains capable of using alternative, low-cost, or waste feed stocks (e.g., carbon dioxide, nitrogen, electricity, plastic waste, mixed waste)
  • High efficiency bioreactors designed to match industry processes (e.g., in-line product extraction, artificial intelligence-driven reactor control)
  • System-level co-design of strains and reactors as “bolt-on” assets to support existing industries (e.g., up-valuing waste streams)

Delivering impact

The IBP theme will resolve current impediments to commercial-scale fermentation and cellular agriculture.

People

Theme Leader, Innovative bioproduction platforms

Dr Juan Martinez

Project lead, Leveraging yeast as a platform for enhanced protein production

Dr Marta Gallart Diumenge

Project lead, Predicting bioactive molecules for plant health and agricultural applications