As part of the Public Call for Incentives for Research and Development Projects 2 (RRI 2), our company, as a partner of the consortium, obtained co-financing for the BioRefine 4.0 project "Biotechnological platform for the production of natural compounds based on biomethanol".
The main goal of the project is the development and demonstration of technology for biotechnological production of amino acids, biosynthesized from alternative sustainable raw material sources. The BioRefine platform includes new industrial strains, genetic engineering tools, industrial media and guidelines for industrial process management for selected methylotrophic microorganisms (B.methanolicus) and their rapid development using synthetic biology methods towards the economical production of desired compounds in the industrial environment.
Amino acids are one of the key food and feed additives, but today they are mostly produced from plant raw materials, which requires large areas of quality agricultural land and a large investment of labor, while in the process of extraction from plant material several energy-intensive phases, water and additional environmentally controversial chemicals. . An alternative to extraction are biotechnological processes already used to produce some of the most commercially interesting amino acids, which require the use of sugars, starch, soy flour and other raw materials, which are also obtained from plant sources and thus compete with the food chain. Studies show that, due to the low conversion of plant to animal protein, maintaining a balance between plant and animal protein production and the associated global food security will be an increasing challenge in the future.
The project solves this challenge by introducing a completely new approach to the production of amino acids that will be produced from alternative sustainable sources. We will replace the classic biotechnological production of amino acids, where food raw materials are used as substrates, with new bioprocesses that do not interfere with the food chain and use renewable raw materials in the production of amino acids, which are abundant in nature.
The investment is co - financed by the Republic of Slovenia and the European Union from the European Regional Development Fund.
