Is 2024 the year of the cellular and bioprocessing revolution? 🌱💡
Several years ago, I read about an intriguing pitch by Jason Kelly, CEO and founder of Ginkgo Bioworks, Inc., during his early capital-raising days. In his presentation, he displayed a photo of a desk with a black lamp, a pot-plant, a computer, an iPhone, a camera, and a pre-smartwatch metal watch. He posed a question: 'Which is the most complicated device on the table?' 🤔 The unexpected answer? The pot-plant, by a significant margin!
A simple pot-plant contains millions of cells, each with DNA instructions to produce over 20,000 unique proteins – a conservative estimate. 🌿 Imagine a factory capable of producing 20,000 distinct products, each with a specific function. This concept is the cornerstone of cellular agriculture and therapeutics – utilizing cells to manufacture desired products.
Here are some key technologies enabling this cell-based manufacturing revolution:
Cell-culture Bioprocessing: 🧫 Animal cells are cultured in large-scale bioreactors to produce agricultural products like cultured meat or leather, or therapeutic products like stem cells and bioengineered tissues. These cells can also be engineered to produce specific proteins, enzymes, vaccines, or molecules.
Precision Fermentation: 🧪 Microorganisms in bioreactors produce proteins, enzymes, or other molecules, like milk proteins for cheese.
Molecular Farming: 🌾 Moving protein production to fields or greenhouses, with plants modified to produce proteins, enzymes, antibodies, and vaccines. An example is recombinant growth factors in barley and oilseed plants.
Algal Bioprocessing: 🌊 Cultivation of algae, requiring just sunlight, for biofuels, food, dietary supplements, and other high-value compounds.
As AI captures headlines, a quiet revolution unfolds in cellular bioprocessing. This revolution is poised to introduce new foods, clothes, therapies, and unimaginable products into our lives. 🚀✨
