AutoBioTech - new microbial strain variants for the bioeconomy of tomorrow

On the way to sustainable and economical bioprocesses for the production of valuable chemical molecules, the generation of a large number of genetic variants of a selected microbial producer is inevitable. The targeted (rational) construction of such strain libraries is too time-consuming in a manual approach and therefore automation solutions are urgently required.

The automation of a complete cloning process, i.e. from the generation of single DNA parts to expression in the target host, requires the integration of various molecular biological methods, devices and software modules into a functional, technical workflow.

The innovation lab AutoBioTech (BiooekonomieREVIER: AutoBioTech) has now taken up this challenge and established a corresponding biofoundry. With the automation platform, up to 96 microbial strain variants can be generated at once and initial suitability tests for industrial applications can be carried out. The workflows are based on the modular cloning approach, whereby expert knowledge combined with data-driven modelling is applied to generate and evaluate only promising strain variants. AutoBioTech thus forms the basis for closing the existing strain bottleneck in a structured manner and establishing bioeconomic processes more quickly in the future.

The AutoBioTech platform was published in ACS Synthetic Biology:

https://doi.org/10.1021/acssynbio.4c00298