Engineering biology for animal-free cheese protein production

植物奶酪很重要。在英国，我们每年生产超过50万吨的奶酪。然而，奶牛养殖会产生大量的甲烷，这是一种非常有害的温室气体。因此，人们正在改变他们的饮食，越来越多的人采用低动物含量或无动物的饮食。食品公司正在开发越来越多的植物性产品来满足这一需求，比如植物性奶酪。为无动物产品生产足够的正确蛋白质是一个挑战。目前用于这样做的系统建造和操作都很昂贵。Fermtech是一家位于牛津的生物技术初创公司，正在开发一种超低成本的方法来生产不含动物的蛋白质。这项技术利用真菌的力量，以废弃生物质为原料，创造了循环经济，并保持了低成本。这个项目将让我们测试如何将这个生产系统用于商业规模的生产，迈出第一步，让美味、低碳、不含动物的乳制品迅速出现在超市货架上。

Plant-based cheese is important. In the UK, we produce over 500,000 tons of dairy cheese per year. However, dairy farming produces a lot of methane, which is a highly harmful greenhouse gas.As a result, people are changing what they eat, with more people adopting animal-low, or animal-free diets. Food companies are developing more and more plant-based products to meet this need, like plant-based cheese.There's a challenge in producing enough of the right proteins for animal-free products. Current systems for doing this are expensive to build and operate. Fermtech are an Oxford-based biotech start-up developing an ultra low-cost way to produce animal-free proteins to do the job. The technology harnesses the power of fungi, grown on waste biomass as a feedstock, creating a circular economy, and keeping costs low.This project will allow us to test how this production system can be developed for commercial-scale production, taking the first step to getting great-tasting, low-carbon, animal-free dairy products on supermarket shelves quickly.