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.
