Innovative, manufacturing design to synthesize natural product derivatives

一些植物、真菌和细菌产生具有强大生物活性的化学物质(天然产品或NPs)，作为其化学生态的一部分。这些纳米粒子对人类疾病、农作物和动物有害生物具有极好的活性。然而，它们是复杂的分子，自然会少量生产，因此它们的生产可能具有挑战性，而且成本高昂，大大限制了它们的市场潜力。目前，它们是通过组合发酵来生产NP，然后通过一个或多个化学步骤将其修饰为最终产品。从自然提供的东西开始，只有非常有限的化学物质才能进入，这可能会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异构酶正在开发一种制造NP药物的创新工艺，首先是由经过基因工程的微生物(“非天然”NP)制造的合理设计的产品，这些产品经过精心设计，能够进行简单、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一种特殊的NP寄生虫剂，以显著降低这种宝贵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的药物。一旦得到证实，这种制造创新将给生物技术带来革命性的变化，使我们能够生产成本更低的NPs，然后可以开发成优秀的人类药物、作物保护和动物保健产品。

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.