Improving Yeast Production Processes with Novel Strain Development
Lead Research Organisation:
University of Leicester
Department Name: Genetics
Abstract
Abstracts are not currently available in GtR for all funded research. This is normally because the abstract was not required at the time of proposal submission, but may be because it included sensitive information such as personal details.
Publications
Naseeb S
(2021)
Restoring fertility in yeast hybrids: Breeding and quantitative genetics of beneficial traits.
in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America
Hovhannisyan H
(2020)
Integrative Omics Analysis Reveals a Limited Transcriptional Shock After Yeast Interspecies Hybridization.
in Frontiers in genetics
Gyurchev N
(2022)
Beyond Saccharomyces pastorianus for modern lager brews: Exploring non-cerevisiae Saccharomyces hybrids with heterotic maltotriose consumption and novel aroma profile
in Frontiers in Microbiology
Gibson B
(2017)
New yeasts-new brews: modern approaches to brewing yeast design and development.
in FEMS yeast research
Boekhout T
(2021)
The evolving species concepts used for yeasts: from phenotypes and genomes to speciation networks.
in Fungal diversity
Barton DBH
(2018)
PHENOS: a high-throughput and flexible tool for microorganism growth phenotyping on solid media.
in BMC microbiology
| Description | This project was to determine the market for improved yeast production systems and develop partnerships that would lead to applications for further funding. Such an application was made at the end of the project. Further partnerships are being developed in order to carry through with the actual development of an improved strain producing a desired product by various industries - all are heterologous proteins at the moment. |
| Exploitation Route | The improvement of yeast production of heterologous proteins, enzymes, metabolites, foundation chemicals, high value chemicals, commodity chemicals is highly desirable as the current market is ready due to IP running out on existing systems and the continued need for economic and proven safe technologies. Yeast improvement can also be used by the food and beverage industries where market forces have changed the desired product outcomes - low alcohol beverages for example. |
| Sectors | Agriculture, Food and Drink,Creative Economy,Manufacturing, including Industrial Biotechology,Pharmaceuticals and Medical Biotechnology |
| Description | This has resulted in potential impact as we have convinced several pharmaceutical companies that our yeast system can improve production and lead to new IP. We are now in discussion with first expression examples, have sourced lab space and funding. Since the start we have grown as a startup company to 20 employees with several commercial projects as well as grants including a BMGF project to develop high quality low cost vaccine excipients for lower to middle income countries. |
| First Year Of Impact | 2019 |
| Sector | Pharmaceuticals and Medical Biotechnology |
| Impact Types | Societal,Economic |
| Description | H2020-MSCA-ITN-2017: 764927 - YEASTDOC |
| Amount | € 3,094,944 (EUR) |
| Funding ID | 764927-YEASTDOC |
| Organisation | European Commission H2020 |
| Sector | Public |
| Country | Belgium |
| Start | 09/2017 |
| End | 09/2022 |
| Description | Phenotypeca research contract to develop new yeasts |
| Organisation | Phenotypeca |
| Country | United Kingdom |
| Sector | Private |
| PI Contribution | New startup company (started 12/2018) to develop new production yeast strains for the biopharma and biotech industries. It is my science that the collaboration is based on and currently my University lab is subcontracted to initiate the strain development. |
| Collaborator Contribution | Phenotypeca has obtained an Innovate UK grant and has lab and office space along with partners with analytical and fermentation tools. They are providing high throughput analytics and assessment of strains as well as a variety of expression vectors (proprietary) for different partners. |
| Impact | New collaboration so outputs are still to come. The spinout itself is an output as seen in another section. |
| Start Year | 2019 |
| Company Name | Phenotypeca Ltd |
| Description | Phenotypeca provides novel biologics production strains of the regulatory friendly baker's yeast, Saccharomyces cerevisiae for the manufacture of biologicals. We offer world leading yeast technology to rapidly provide cost-effective production strains optimised for specific biotechnology processes. This is achieved by harnessing the natural diversity in up to a billion different yeast cells to identify those with the ideal phenotypes and performance characteristics for industrial process conditions. Working with our customers we aim to improve access to life-saving medicines and promote sustainable manufacturing. With baker's yeast now fully established for the safe and economic production of FDA approved biologics, such as insulins and vaccines, our technology is ideal for taking bioprocesses to the next level. |
| Year Established | 2018 |
| Impact | As a recent startup there is limited impact at the moment. There are 6 salaried employees, one full time research scientist, a scientific officer, a research director, business director and tech support. An Innovate UK award for proof of principle was awarded in January 2020 which subcontracts some work to the University lab in Leicester. |
| Website | https://phenotypeca.com/ |
| Description | ICY15 Invited talk |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | A talk or presentation |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | International |
| Primary Audience | Professional Practitioners |
| Results and Impact | Invited talk in scientific session relevant to Yeats hybrids. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2021 |
| URL | https://fems-microbiology.org/opportunities/15th-international-congress-on-yeasts-icy15/ |
| Description | Invited Speaker at Cold Spring Harbor Meeting on Yeast History |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | A talk or presentation |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | International |
| Primary Audience | Professional Practitioners |
| Results and Impact | Over 200 yeast biologists/geneticists from academia and industry from around the world attend the special Cold Spring Harbor meeting on Yeast History. The main outcome was to reintroduce the classical and sometimes forgotten areas of yeast biology to the younger generations which will benefit science and research approaches. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2019 |
| URL | https://meetings.cshl.edu/meetings.aspx?meet=biohist&year=19 |
| Description | Keynote at Benelux annual yeast meeting |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | A talk or presentation |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | International |
| Primary Audience | Postgraduate students |
| Results and Impact | Several Universities and Industries attended and interest in future collaborations was expressed. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2018 |
| URL | https://www.yeasterday.nl |
| Description | Plenary speaker at ISSY33 in Cork |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | A talk or presentation |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | International |
| Primary Audience | Professional Practitioners |
| Results and Impact | New collaborations starting with potential of future benefit. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2017 |