How important is high-performance bacterial strains? Whether it can make money, whether the product is stable or not, and whether it can expand its scale, mostly depends on its "ability"!
Whether a factory can make money, whether its products are stable or not, and whether it can expand its scale largely depend on its "ability".
Specifically, its importance is reflected in the following aspects.
Firstly, to help the factory reduce costs and increase efficiency.
Biological manufacturing relies on microorganisms to 'eat raw materials to produce products', and good strains of bacteria can use raw materials more thoroughly and produce them faster.
For example, when it comes to producing hyaluronic acid (HA), ordinary bacterial strains used to only produce 5-8 grams of HA per liter of fermentation broth, but high-yielding strains can produce up to 15-20 grams.
And the fermentation time can also be reduced, for example, when making lactic acid, good strains can finish within 24 hours, which is twice as fast as old strains. The fermentation tank can produce 40% more in a year.
Next is to ensure the quality of the product.
Industrial production is most afraid of "batch fluctuations" and "impurities", and good strains will not overturn.
For example, in the production of penicillin from high-performance strains, by-products only account for 5%, while ordinary strains can reach 20%. With fewer by-products, the subsequent purification steps can be reduced by half, resulting in a significant cost reduction;
Moreover, good strains of bacteria have stable properties and can maintain high yields even after passing through dozens of generations.
They will not suddenly cause a sharp drop in yield or excessive impurities in a certain batch of goods, avoiding the loss of scrapping the entire batch of goods in the factory.
The third is to help the factory increase production.
Some products couldn't be industrialized before because they lacked good bacterial strains.
For example, artemisinin precursors used to be extracted from Artemisia annua seeds, but the yield was still uncertain. Later, brewing yeast was modified to produce artemisinin acid, which increased the production capacity to thousands of tons;
There are also high salt tolerant bacterial strains that can directly use industrial wastewater containing salt as a culture medium, saving water and treating wastewater, which is equivalent to "turning waste into treasure".
For example, when making citric acid, good bacterial strains produce fewer by-products, reducing pollutants in wastewater by 40% and reducing the cost of treating wastewater significantly;
Moreover, biomanufacturing itself is low-carbon compared to chemical synthesis, and good strains can further reduce carbon emissions - for example, when producing 1,3-propanediol, fermentation method emits 6 tons of CO ₂ less per ton than chemical synthesis method, which meets current environmental protection requirements.
Ultimately, biomanufacturing factories are like "feeding on bacterial strains". Good bacterial strains are the core that can make factories earn more money and make their products more competitive.
Nowadays, everyone is competing for this' core advantage 'by combining synthetic biology modified strains.
