Team:UCL London/Project/Objectives

Objective
Our objective with this project is to improve measurements for bio-processing.

This will be done by adding a new biological dimension to existing mechanical monitoring tools. These new “biological measurement devises” have the function of letting the cells convey to us what environmental conditions they experience themselves of being subjected to. Previously, monitoring bio-processing is done by mechanical means and the process is continuously altered to keep the processing conditions within benchmark values. However, in order to let cells carry out useful tasks for us humans, it is often mandatory to alter them in some way. Altering cells with the help of more traditional biotechnology has a history of a few decades and today the emerging field of synthetic biology is further increasing the possibilities of bioprocessing. When altering the function and genetic set-up of a microorganism it might also become more or less resilient to or affected by different levels of stresses it can experience during a processing environment. In the past it has often been a tedious and time consuming process to determine how to optimise a process and we are hoping that our tool greatly can reduce that burden.

Manufacturing of biomolecules is a rapidly growing business segment and already today accounts for a multibillion dollar market. Our devise will lead to increased quantity (and possibly quality in the form of purity) of biomolecules that can be produced through bio-processing by improving process monitoring and the direct biological knowledge about the process.