Biomanufacturing and Digital Twins

The growth of the circular bioeconomy, or the commercial and industrial application of sustainable bio-based products and services, has long been an ambition for many governments, public and private stakeholders. The benefits of that economic system are manifold, especially for energy use reduction, increased innovation and sustainability.

Transitioning towards a system of production firmly rooted in biotechnological innovation, and away from traditional petroleum-based manufacturing practices, is dependent on the enabling research from fields such as synthetic biology, information technology, and industrial biotechnology.

Expertise, techniques and infrastructure

  • Synthetic biology: CRISPR technologies, oligonucleotide-mediated recombineering, genetic circuits, biosensors, combinatorial DNA assembly and genome engineering, high-throughput screening
  • Metabolic engineering: new-to-nature metabolic configurations (e.g., C1-metabolism), growth-coupled scenarios, adaptive laboratory evolution (ALE), lifestyle engineering
  • Bioproduction: using Pseudomonas putida as our main microbial chassis, but with research projects on Escherichia coli, Rhodobacter sphaeroides, Cutaneotrichosporon oleaginosus, Bacillus subtilis and Saccharomyces cerevisiae
  • Metabolic modelling: model-driven design, Flux Balance Analysis (FBA)
  • Digital Twins: DBTL, Design & Learn (DoE, ML), robotics, micro-fluidics, HTP Digital Twin technologies, semantic technologies
  • Safety-and-Sustainability-by-Design: biosafety, valorisation, multi-stakeholder engagement
  • Infrastructure: BIOTECH.NL, UNLOCK (Microbial communities), IBISBA (Industrial biotech & SynBio), ELIXIR & Data Science (Data, models, semantics)

Our mission

Our aims encompass the exploration, development and implementation of pioneering technologies in all these research fields in order to facilitate bio-based production, spanning a wide range of biomanufacturing, from bioplastics to pharmaceuticals, while being assisted by digital twins with access to historical data and present process conditions which can simulate the future based on effective models.

Our mission is to carry out excellent multidisciplinary research and education underpinning biomanufacturing and digital twins.

Strategy

We specialize in applying microbial systems, advanced bioengineering and modelling technologies to real-world challenges. We approach the field of biomanufacturing in a holistic manner, considering the optimization of the bioconversion process from different viewpoints including the microbial platform, the conditions within and their remote control, the biotransformation itself, and the implications beyond.

Our projects