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

工业生物技术（IB）和生物基化学品生产的科学进步有可能改变全球工业格局，彻底改变所有工业部门的可持续制造过程，包括医疗保健、可持续能源、绿色化学、制药、新材料和生物修复。事实上，工业和社会面临的许多挑战（包括能源需求和效率、替代化石燃料和处理污染、资源效率、粮食安全、气候变化和能源短缺）现在都可以通过生物基生产技术来解决。为了开发IB的潜力，对生产菌株和放大工艺的性能的全面了解是至关重要的。高通量台式微发酵系统（Robolector-XL）为在大规模研究之前进行工艺/克隆验证的主要挑战领域提供了解决方案。RoboLector-XL（和其他相关系统）现在被一些工业公司广泛使用，这从根本上改变了他们的细胞系培养方法。这种能力将为曼彻斯特生物技术研究所（MIB）和更广泛的曼彻斯特大学（UoM）研究环境中的几个重点生物技术研究领域提供关键的使能技术，并将有助于推动研究走向开发和商业化。

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.