Achilles heel of the technology
Although it is technologically possible to have microorganisms produce anything in a laboratory, the Achilles heel of precision fermentation is scaling up the process. Upscaling is about increasing the production of a given substance from a few milligrams in the laboratory to a yield of several tons in a factory. This means extra work for the researchers.
“We can make anything in the laboratory, but as soon as we scale up the production up, we encounter difficulties. When the microorganisms go from living in a 1-liter fermentation tank to a larger tank, they often respond to changes of, e.g., temperature, osmotic pressure, and oxygen and salt content, etc., and the production of the given substance may slow down or even stop. Thus, we also work a lot on manipulating the microorganisms, so they can cope with the changes. At worst, we will have to start over and find a new microorganism,” says José L. Martinez, who explains that it is becoming continuously easier to search for nature's own answer to microorganisms that are robust enough to cope with upscaling.
“Thanks to the rapid technological development in areas such as genome sequencing, robots, big data handling, and artificial intelligence, we can now screen thousands of microorganisms in a week, as opposed to around one hundred just ten years ago,” says José L. Martinez, adding:
“The portfolio of potential microorganisms to utilize has grown enormously because we can find them now. Nature has actually already invented all solutions. We just need to find them.”
