Can photosynthesis lead to more sustainable biomanufacturing?
Nusqe Spanton, CEO and founder of Provectus Algae looks at how photosynthesis can offer sustainability in biomanufacturing and the role microalgae play in this.
Over the past few decades, the biotechnology community has transformed the applications of cellular systems. They have expanded from interesting research tools to extremely valuable and increasingly prevalent manufacturing engines. However, as we consider the future of the planet, questions remain about how sustainable its practices are.
Though biomanufacturing has found its way into many essential industries, a large portion of the industry’s growth has been spurred by biopharmaceuticals, particularly in the wake of Covid-19. Worldwide annual biopharmaceutical revenue estimates have surpassed 300 billion USD, growing by ~12% on average per year. The bioprocessing market itself has also grown in parallel, driven in part by increased demand for bioprocessing equipment.
As biomanufacturing and the list of biologic products continues to grow, so too will society’s dependence on the industry. Unfortunately, the ongoing growth of this sector also entails an increase in its overall environmental impact. According to European Federation of Pharmaceutical Industries and Associations (EFPIA), the pharma industry is already considered a “medium impact sector,” though a 2019 comparative analysis study by Belkhir and Elmeligi at McMaster University found it to be more carbon-intensive than the automotive industry.
As these findings accumulate, the need for greater sustainability is harder and harder for biomanufacturers to ignore. But finding alternative processes and solutions has proven difficult in this highly controlled and regulated world.
The State of Biomanufacturing: Toward Sustainability
In late 2021, world leaders met to discuss and solidify plans to address climate change at COP26 in Glasgow, which has brought additional attention across a far-reaching list of industries, including the pharmaceuticals sector. For example, the Association of the British Pharmaceutical Industry (ABPI) led a joint statement outlining the steps pharma companies are taking to reduce their collective impact on the planet’s health. Even before COP26, organisations had begun to chart their own course toward sustainability and carbon neutrality, including Amgen’s 2027 Environmental Sustainability plan.
Among the industry’s targets, biomanufacturers have set out to increase renewable energy use, consolidate shipping, reduce water consumption, improve HVAC efficiency, and incorporate more plastic recycling. Still, there remains a seemingly immutable aspect of biomanufacturing that, by its nature, produces CO2 and limits sustainability. The organisms themselves.
Increasing Sustainability With a Photosynthetic Cellular Chassis: Microalgae
Though biomanufacturers use a number of cellular production chassis, mammalian (e.g., CHO, HEK293, etc.), insect (e.g., Sf9), yeast (e.g., S. cerevisiae), and bacterial (e.g., E. coli) cells dominate most commercial bioprocesses. All of these organisms naturally create CO2 and consume resource-limited raw materials through their metabolic processes. Thus, as their applications and scale grow, they will have an increasing impact on our environment.
It can feel like an impossible challenge to overcome. However, there are solutions within biology itself. Biomanufacturers can look to photosynthesis and, more specifically, microalgae.
Through significant advances in biotechnology and synthetic biology, microalgae species have emerged as valuable photosynthetic biomanufacturing chassis, with plenty of room to (literally and figuratively) grow. Instead of consuming O2 and energy rich molecules (largely sugars) to power bioproduction, microalgae consume CO2 and use light as its energy source. As a result, microalgae naturally fix CO2 to produce valuable materials and biologics. Thus, by adopting microalgae, biomanufacturers can produce their valuable biologic products using a carbon negative expression system.
To accurately calculate environmental impact, organisations need to consider the totality of their manufacturing operations and inputs. Raw materials and feedstock for more traditional cellular systems come with their own sustainability challenges. Compared to microalgae, fermentation using traditional cellular systems requires more nutrient rich media for successful growth. These nutrients include essential building blocks (e.g., amino acids, nucleotides, etc.) and energy-rich molecules (e.g., glucose). The production, storage, and distribution of these raw materials can significantly add to the carbon footprint of biomanufacturers. This is particularly true for glucose and other feedstock sugars since their production depends heavily on arable land and freshwater. Thus, glucose production often competes for the land and water needed to nourish human populations. By depending more on CO2 and requiring less nutrient rich media, microalgae biomanufacturing reduces the impact raw materials have on overall institutional sustainability goals.
The untapped species and metabolic diversity of microalgae also holds potential for developing biomanufacturing materials that would otherwise be produced synthetically, in some cases using materials, solvents, and practices that are less sustainable and environmentally friendly.
Collectively, microalgae are considered a fast-emerging biomanufacturing option for a number of reasons, separate from photosynthetic capabilities. Microalgae enjoy significant natural metabolic diversity, fast growth, low production costs, and high cellular densities to name a few. Crucially, microalgae offer CO2 consumption as a highly beneficial “byproduct,” rather than as an exclusive driver of adoption. This aspect of bioprocessing could be an economic advantage, instead of a liability.
Building a Sustainable Microalgae Biomanufacturing Pipeline: Our work on the Provectus Algae Platform
While the value of microalgae biomanufacturing has been clear for some time, large-scale algae production has struggled against some historic challenges. Recent advances in microalgae biotechnology have created massive opportunities to overcome these complications.
Our team at Provectus Algae has built an end-to-end platform that helps biomanufacturers identify ideal microalgae species, rationally engineer their genomes, cultivate them at necessary scales, and sustainably maximise productivity.
Provectus Algae’s platform leverages the latest advances in synthetic biology, machine learning, and automation to more fully explore, characterise, and understand microalgae species and their unique metabolic profiles. Powered by machine learning and high throughput data analysis, Provectus Algae can rapidly develop a purpose-built microalgae chassis for biomanufacturing products and determine the precise conditions those algae need to thrive.
Our team has also developed proprietary photo-bioreactors that solve past challenges of large-scale cultivation. Historically, large raceway ponds were used for larger scale algae biomanufacturing, but these set-ups cannot support the GMP conditions needed by the biopharma industry. Conversely, older photo-bioreactor models struggled to provide appropriate light and flow conditions for high cellular growth and productivity, limiting their potential scale. With recent improvements in LED technology and better understanding of light’s ability to tune microalgae growth and expression, Provectus Algae has developed a proprietary light-driven approach to microalgae biomanufacturing called Precision Photosynthesis. Importantly, this approach includes photo-bioreactors that are ready for commercial scale production in highly controlled environments.
By providing the complete infrastructure needed to tap into microalgae bioprocesses, our end-to-end technology could help usher in a new era in sustainable biomanufacturing. While CHO, E. coli, and other common chassis may still dominate, microalgae’s inherent CO2 capturing ability provides biomanufacturers with an alternative tactic for reaching carbon neutrality––without sacrifice.