SBIR Phase II: Sustainable alternative protein cultivation from fungal mycelium for human consumption

这项小企业创新研究（SBIR）项目具有更广泛的影响和商业潜力，是一种人类级蛋白质的新来源，其生产成本估计只有鸡肉批发价格的一半，每英亩蛋白质产量是大豆的2000倍，而投入需求只是大豆的一小部分。这种新蛋白质解决了工业中潜在的过敏原、氨基酸组成、味道和质地差以及加工性有限的痛点。如果成功商业化，energy的潜在影响是能够以动物蛋白价格的50%为数百万人提供高质量的蛋白质，同时减少世界温室气体排放，所有这些都大大减少了土地足迹。该SBIR二期计划利用生物有机体的效率来生产供人类消费的高质量、经济和可持续的蛋白质。为了实现这一目标，energy将丝状真菌生物量作为人类级蛋白质来源。真菌生物量是市场上可获得的任何原料来源中蛋白质含量最高的之一（重量60%），是唯一完整的蛋白质之一。energy开发了发酵参数，并使用定向进化来生产真菌过程/菌株，与传统的蛋白质生产方法相比，它具有几个固有的优势。该产品具有资源需求少、产量高、安全无毒、单位成本低等优点。虽然这一工艺已经在实验台上得到了验证，但技术上的障碍包括将生产规模扩大到工业系统，同时保持适当的质地和质量。energy Labs计划通过优化规模化生物反应器的生长条件、定义工业操作参数、设计和验证可扩展的制造工艺以及展示商业相关规模来实现这些目标。该奖项反映了美国国家科学基金会的法定使命，并通过使用基金会的知识价值和更广泛的影响审查标准进行评估，被认为值得支持。

The broader impact and commercial potential of this Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) project is a new source of human-grade protein that it can be produced at an estimated half the price of wholesale chicken and 2000 times higher protein yields per acre compared to soy with a fraction of the input requirements. The new protein addresses pain points in industry of potential allergens, amino acid composition, poor flavor and texture, and limited processability. If successfully commercialized, Emergy's potential impact is the ability to provide high quality protein to millions of people at 50% the price of animal protein, while saving the world greenhouse gas emissions, all with a significantly reduced land footprint.This SBIR Phase II proposes to use the efficiencies of biological organisms to produce high quality, economical, and sustainable protein for human consumption. To achieve this goal, Emergy grows filamentous fungi biomass as a human-grade protein source. The fungal biomass has one of the highest protein contents of any raw source available on the market (60% by weight) and is one of the only complete proteins. Emergy has developed fermentation parameters and used directed evolution to produce a fungal process/strain that provides several inherent advantages over traditional protein production methods. Advantages of production include, low resource requirements, high yields, safe and toxin free, and low unit costs. While this process has been demonstrated at the benchtop level, the technical hurdles include scaling production to industrial systems while maintaining the proper texture and quality. Emergy Labs plans on executing these goals by optimizing growth conditions in scaled bioreactors, defining industrial operating parameters, designing and proving a scalable manufacturing process, and demonstrating commercially relevant scale.This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.