A bench-top, parallel 8 bioreactor platform for optimizing the sustainable production of pharmaceuticals, biologics, materials, fuels and foods

工程生物学是在过去20年中发展起来的一个研究领域。在此期间，新技术已经被创造出来，使我们能够设计具有所需功能的细胞。现在，我们正在进入合成生物学的下一个阶段，这些新技术可以应用于创造新的更可持续的生物过程。应用的一个实例是使用工程细胞（哺乳动物或微生物）来产生感兴趣的分子。在可以由细胞产生的分子中，我们发现化学品，材料，食品，药品和燃料，可以以更可持续的方式生产。细胞也可以由来自我们城市、农业实践或工业的废物喂养，从而有助于我们向零废物生物经济的过渡。在这个项目中，我们的目标是帮助合成生物学技术从实验室过渡到市场，特别是那些与生物生产有关的技术。为此，我们建议在帝国理工学院建立一个台式生物反应器设施，可用于在实验室中探索类似工业的条件，并在进入大规模，昂贵和稀缺的生物反应器之前优化和评估工艺的潜力。该设施位于生物工程系微生物学管理设施内，可供学术界和工业界的内部和外部用户使用。

Engineering Biology is an area of research that has been developed in the past 20 years. During this time, new technologies have been created that allow us to engineer cells with desired capabilities. Now, we are entering the next phases of synthetic biology where these new technologies can be applied to create new more sustainable bioprocesses. One example of applications is the use of engineered cells, either mammalian or microbial to produce molecules of interest. Among the molecules that can be produced by cells we find chemicals, materials, foods, pharmaceuticals and fuels, which can be produced in a more sustainable way. Cells can also be fed by waste, coming from our cities, agricultural practices or industries, therefore contributing to our transition to a zero-waste bioeconomy. In this project we aim to help the transition from lab to market of synthetic biology enabled technologies, in particular those linked to bioproduction. For that, we propose the creation of a benchtop bioreactor facility at Imperial College, that can be used to explore industrial-like conditions in the lab and allow the optimisation and evaluation of the potential of the processess, before going to large scale, expensive and scarce bioreactors. This facility, located in the managaed Facility of Microbiology hosted in the Department of Bioengineering will be available to both internal and external users from academia an industry.