Sustainable Chemicals

Lead production strain design has traditionally used selected wild type strains as starting points; from these wild strains, a heterologous or endogenous pathway gets inserted into the strain, and its regulation is engineered so that a particular metabolite is overproduced. We continue this tradition with selected industrial chemicals for various application areas, looking back at success stories for the food, feed, nutraceutical, therapeutic and cosmetics sector (e.g. amino acids, alkaloids, vitamins, hormones or building blocks). Go to our list of spinouts.

We are able to address:

1. strain development and bioprocess prototyping for targeted products, and
2. development of a new generation of starting strains.

These strains can, for example, have production scale robustness and specifically defined “high cell density” phenotypes that allow for a prolonged production phase at challenging demandingly high cell densities – so called “fermenterphiles” (read more in the HDP program).

A holistic, integrated approach from ideation and target selection to process and product development is incorporated, using the translational capabilities in place at CFB. To facilitate and manage the different stages of the program, a variety of interdisciplinary skills are employed, particularly in the Pre-Pilot Plant. To coordinate all these efforts in assessment and guidance on techno-economic and environmental impact, we established the Sustainable Innovation Office.

The Centre's Chief Commercial Officer is heading this program and is responsible for the overall execution, business and technology development, resource allocation, and entrepreneurial realisation of the program molecules. We are looking for partners and collaborators in all fields of microbial-based chemicals with a sustainability mission – we may have the strain, process and technologies to bridge the gap between idea and contract manufacturing together with you.