About
Background
Precision fermentation in cellular agriculture involves culturing microbial hosts such as bacteria or yeast (as for beer or bread) and making them produce specific animal molecules. These can include egg and dairy proteins, other proteins like collagen and gelatin or non-proteins such as fatty acids. Precision fermentation is also an animal-free approach to making growth factors required to grow stem cells into cultivated meat.
Bioengineering microbes to produce animal products (like rennet to make cheese or insulin for diabetics) is a technology that has existed for many decades, however, much work needs to be done to optimise the process for different species and products.
Research focus areas:
Target molecules – thorough characterisation (e.g. flavour, mouthfeel, nutrition, cooking and freezing features, etc) of traditional products such as egg and dairy will determine what molecules need to be produced through fermentation. This will also guide fermentation and purification parameters.
Biosynthetic pathways – for fatty acids and other molecules that are not proteins, the biosynthetic pathways and enzymes that produce them naturally need to be fully understood. Microbial hosts then need to be bioengineered to produce the enzymes responsible. New pathways and enzymes can also be designed to produce novel target molecules.
Microbial host development – microbial hosts best suited to each target product will have to be developed. This can be done through traditional selection (like breeding) or through bioengineering. This also includes determining the best cell culture media or feedstock for each host.
Product purification – efficient ways to separate the target molecules from the microbial hosts is another focus area. This extends to how the purified molecules are treated and mixed with other ingredients to produce the final products.