Ingenza has joined forces with leading universities and industrial partners to participate in the ConBioChem collaboration, a translational project focused on the development of novel platform technologies for the continuous bio-production of commodity chemicals. The consortium, led by Professor Gill Stephens of the University of Nottingham, recently achieved success in the Industrial Biotechnology Catalyst – a multi-million pound competition funded by Innovate UK, BBSRC and EPSRC – resulting in the award of £3.46 million over a five-year period.
The consortium includes industrial partners Ingenza, Lucite, the Centre for Process Innovation, Green Biologics and Chain Biotech – along with the University of Nottingham, University College London and the University of Cambridge – and aims to develop new industrial biotechnology-based routes to commodity chemicals, moving away from fossil fuel and petrochemical-derived building blocks. Project manager Andrew Wells from the University of Nottingham explained: “Our aim is to use synthetic biology approaches to develop sustainable technologies based on the continuous fermentation of genetically-modified cells, enabling the rapid and cost-effective production of commodity chemicals from renewable carbon sources. By using multi-scale modelling and establishing ‘plug and play’ biological processes, we can improve efficiency, helping to accelerate the implementation of scalable bio-based manufacturing processes that are commercially viable.”