Next-Generation Adaptive Evolution Toolkit to Increase Protein Production in Precision Fermentation

下一代自适应进化工具包可提高精密发酵中的蛋白质产量

• 批准号: 10068375
• 金额: $ 45.29万
• 依托单位: EVOLUTOR LIMITED
• 依托单位国家: 英国
• 项目类别: Collaborative R&D
• 财政年份: 2023
• 资助国家: 英国
• 起止时间: 2023 至 无数据
• 项目状态: 未结题
• 来源: https://gtr.ukri.org/projects?ref=10068375
• 关键词: Next; Generation; Adaptive; Evolution; Toolkit

For novel low-emission foods to reach customers in a way that is affordable and widely accessible (and therefore maximise the positive impact they can have on reducing the carbon emissions and climate impact of our agriculture systems) one of the major challenges that needs to be overcome is **price parity.**After taste, cost is the greatest blocker to public acceptance and adoption of alternative proteins. It is therefore vital that we develop production methods and technologies that decrease the manufacturing cost of novel low-emission proteins to allow them to compete on the market with incumbent products. These incumbent products (e.g. traditional cow's milk, beef, hen's eggs, etc) have decades or centuries of infrastructure and economies-of-scale behind them. Competing with these industries is no small challenge, but a challenge that is vitally necessary to overcome as we push towards Net Zero Ambitions.At Evolutor, our focus is on the production of food proteins using microbes (yeast and bacteria) in precision fermentation systems. Much like how we use yeast to convert sugar into alcohol for beer and wine production, we can engineer these microbial strains to produce meat, dairy and egg proteins. There are many companies around the world already focussed on doing just this (e.g. Better Dairy, Motif Foodworks, Imagindairy, The Every Company and Onego Bio), but they all face a major challenge: how to maximise the protein production capabilities of their precision fermentation manufacturing to drive down cost and hit price parity _v.s._ traditional proteins.Through the innovations of this project, Evolutor and The University of Sheffield are developing **Protein-Infinity:** a microbe optimisation toolkit that will solve this problem in an entirely new way that is **protein-agnostic** and can be applied across diverse precision fermentation sectors to **maximise the project's commercial value and climate impact.**We are doing this by linking protein production to evolutionary selection pressures, creating environments where _"survival-of-the-fittest"_ means _"survival-of-the-highest-protein-producer"_. This strategy and the ground-breaking way in which Protein-Infinity will execute it will rapidly accelerate the commercial viability of precision fermentation UK-wide and beyond. We aim to double protein production, driving novel proteins towards price parity and moving our economy closer to a Bio-Industrial Revolution: producing food proteins that are **affordable, delicious, nutritious, sustainable** and **accessible by all**.

为了使新型低排放食品以负担得起和广泛可及的方式到达消费者手中（从而最大限度地发挥它们对减少农业系统的碳排放和气候影响的积极影响），需要克服的主要挑战之一是价格平价。除了味道，成本是公众接受和采用替代蛋白质的最大障碍。因此，我们必须开发生产方法和技术，降低新型低排放蛋白质的制造成本，使其能够在市场上与现有产品竞争。这些现有产品（如传统的牛奶、牛肉、鸡蛋等）背后有几十年或几百年的基础设施和规模经济。与这些行业竞争是一个不小的挑战，但在我们努力实现净零目标的过程中，这是一个至关重要的挑战。在Evolutor，我们的重点是在精密发酵系统中使用微生物（酵母和细菌）生产食品蛋白质。就像我们使用酵母将糖转化为酒精以生产啤酒和葡萄酒一样，我们可以改造这些微生物菌株来生产肉类、乳制品和鸡蛋蛋白。世界各地有许多公司已经专注于这样做（例如Better Dairy，Motif Foodworks，Imagindairy，The Every Company和Onego Bio），但他们都面临着一个重大挑战：如何最大限度地提高其精密发酵制造的蛋白质生产能力，以降低成本并实现价格平价。通过该项目的创新，Evolutor和谢菲尔德大学正在开发 **Protein-Infinity：** 微生物优化工具包，该工具包将以一种全新的方式解决这一问题，该方式与蛋白质无关 **，可应用于各种精密发酵领域，以 ** 最大限度地提高项目的商业价值和气候影响 **。我们正在通过将蛋白质生产与进化选择压力联系起来来实现这一目标，创造一种环境，在这种环境中，“适者生存”意味着“最高蛋白质生产者生存”。这一战略以及Protein-Infinity将以突破性的方式执行它，将迅速加速英国乃至其他地区精密发酵的商业可行性。我们的目标是将蛋白质产量翻一番，推动新型蛋白质价格平价，并使我们的经济更接近生物工业革命：生产价格实惠，美味，营养，可持续的食物蛋白质，所有人都可以获得。