Priority Programme “Novel Production Processes through Cross-Scale Analysis, Modeling and Design of Cell-Cell and Cell-Bioreactor Interactions (InterZell)” (SPP 2170)
Deadline: 01. Februar 2022
More than 95 percent of the microbial flora cannot be cultivated in pure culture, but only in mixed culture (biological dark matter). Their potential for the production of natural products and biopharmaceuticals (incl. antibiotics) can at best be imagined on the basis of the dominant approach of pure culture. At the same time, the rapid development of synthetic biology offers novel opportunities to modify already established laboratory systems, such as Escherichia coli, so that individual strains optimally take over individual production tasks and only their symbiosis in mixed culture enables the production of the target product.
Once bioprocesses have been newly developed, the performance data from the laboratory have to be transferred without any losses to the large-volume production scale. This requires a deep understanding of the interactions between the producing cells and the sometimes harsh real production conditions. Although essential for the accurate prediction and optimisation of the processes, the necessary quantitative understanding is not sufficiently available yet.
The Priority Programme therefore sets a defined research objective on cell-cell and cell-bioreactor interactions in biotechnological production processes for the production of raw materials, fine chemicals, aroma substances, technical or therapeutic proteins as well as pharmaceutically active components such as antibiotics or precursors of drug synthesis. The programme explicitly does not consider cell-cell interactions of biological consortia of soil, water or waste air treatment, but focuses on the production of the above mentioned substances under the controlled conditions of industrial bioreactors.