SINTEF has more than 25 years experience with development of microbial bioprocesses.
We have four well core laboratory facilities supporting the activity.
- Molecular biology (Illumina MySeq and ddPCR)
- High throughput screening (several robotic systems customised for bioprocess development)
- Fermentation and downstream processing (32 laboratory fermentors (1-3L) and two pilot fermentors (50L and 300L)
- Analyses (HPLCs, GC-MS, LC-MS, LC-Qtof, LC-QQQ, Rapid fire LC-MS, Field flow fractionation, ICP-MS, FT-ICR)
Key competences, research areas and products
- Development of efficient microbial strains. SINTEF are working with several different microbial host with focus on development of efficient and robust microbial cell factories suitable for industrial production of different products. Main competence in engineering of Escherichia coli, Bacillus, Actinomycetes, Pseudomonas and lactic acid bacteria. Strain improvement is either by mutagenesis and high throughput screening or advanced targeted strain engineering including systems and synthetic biology approaches.
- Eukaryotic production. We have established yeast and CHO- and HEK-cell based expression systems for production of proteins, and have projects focusing on engineering of fungi for production of antibiotics.
- Development, production and use of industrial enzymes. Identification (metagenomics), modelling, evolution, production and use of different enzymes are core activities.
- Bio refinery is a prioritized research area at SINTEF. We focus both on new methods for efficient fractionation of biomass (lignocellulose, crustacean waste and macroalgae) and development of efficient bioprocesses for utilization of the fractions.
- Key products. Enzymes, bioactive small molecules (antimicrobial and anticancer compounds, steroids), vaccines, unsaturated fatty acids, amino acids, pigments, terpenoids and biopolymers.
- Efficient processes. Microbial, cell-based- and enzyme processes are developed in our fermentation facility (laboratory and pilot scale). In addition SINTEF has more than 20 years experience in downscaling and miniaturized cultivation using our High throughput screening facility.