High-throughput micro-fermentation for directed evolution and strain selection in industrial biotechnology

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Scientific advances in industrial biotechnology (IB) and bio-based chemicals production have the potential to transform the global industrial landscape revolutionising sustainable manufacturing processes across all industrial sectors, including healthcare, sustainable energy, green chemistry, pharmaceuticals, novel materials and bioremediation. In fact, many of the challenges faced by industry and society (including energy demand and efficiency, replacement of fossil fuels and dealing with pollution, resource efficiency, food security, climate change and energy shortages) can now be tackled by bio-based production technologies. To exploit the potential of IB a thorough understanding of the performance of production strains and scale-up processes is critical.The high-throughput bench top micro-fermentation system (Robolector-XL) provides a solution to a major challenge area of process/clone validation prior to extensive scale up studies. The RoboLector-XL (and other related systems) are now in extensive use by several industrial concerns and this has radically altered their approach to cell line development. This capability would provide a critical enabling technology to several areas of biotechnological research of focus within both the Manchester Institute of Biotechnology (MIB) and the wider University of Manchester (UoM) research environment, and will help drive the research towards exploitation and commercialisation.