Innovative, manufacturing design to synthesize natural product derivatives

一些植物、真菌和细菌产生具有有效生物活性的化学品（天然产物或NP），作为其化学生态学的一部分。这些纳米颗粒对人类疾病、作物和动物害虫具有优异的活性。然而，它们是复杂的分子，自然生产量很小，因此生产起来可能具有挑战性和昂贵性，这大大限制了它们的市场潜力。目前，它们是通过发酵的组合来生产的，以制造NP，然后通过一个或多个化学步骤将其修饰成最终产品。从大自然提供的东西开始，只有非常有限的化学物质可以获得，这可能使制造过程更加复杂，危险和昂贵。嗜酸菌及其战略合作伙伴Isomerase正在开发一种制造NP药物的创新工艺，首先是由基因工程微生物（“非天然”NP）制造的合理设计的产品，这些产品经过精心设计，能够实现简便，安全和廉价的化学反应。作为这项创新技术的概念验证，我们正在将这种方法应用于目前用于宠物的特定NP杀寄生虫剂，以大幅降低这种有价值的动物药物的制造成本，并使农民能够负担得起用于食用动物。一旦得到证实，这种制造创新将彻底改变生物技术，使我们能够生产成本更低的纳米颗粒，然后可以开发成优秀的人类药物，作物保护和动物健康产品。

Some plants, fungi and bacteria produce chemicals (natural products or NPs) with potent bioactivity as part of their chemical ecology. These NPs have excellent activity against human diseases, crop- and animal- pests. However, they are complex molecules, naturally made in small quantities, so they can be challenging and expensive to produce, significantly limiting their market potential. Currently, they are produced through a combination of fermentation to make a NP which is then modified into the final product via one or more chemical steps. By starting from what nature provides, only very restricted chemistries are accessible, which can make the manufacturing process more complex, hazardous and expensive. Acidophil and it’s strategic partner, Isomerase are developing an innovative process of manufacturing NP medicines, starting with rationally designed products made by genetically engineered microbes (“unnatural” NPs) that are carefully designed to enable facile, safe and inexpensive chemistries. As proof-of-concept of this innovative technology, we are applying this approach to a particular NP parasiticide currently used in pets, to dramatically reduce the cost of manufacturing of this valuable animal medicine and make it affordable to farmers for use in food animals. Once proven, this manufacturing innovation will revolutionize biotechnology and enable us to produce lower cost NPs, which can then be developed into excellent human pharmaceuticals, crop protection- and animal health- products.