Microbial fermentation is emerging as a dominating strategy in the manufacturing of goods. But microbes lose their production function over time, restricting process efficiency. AsimicA’s innovation uses microbial stem cells to continuously regenerate actively producing cells inside the bioreactor, increasing their productivity.
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Nikolai Mushnikov
Born, raised, and educated in Saint-Petersburg, Russia, Nikolai Mushnikov moved to Laramie, Wyoming in 2013 where he earned his Ph.D. in molecular biology from the University of Wyoming in 2019. After developing an innovation for microbial bio-manufacturing as part of his thesis research, he launched AsimicA to commercialize this new approach.
TECHNOLOGY
Critical Need
The instability of producing cells inside bioreactors limits microbial fermentation efficiency. Every batch restart comes at a high cost, making it a barrier to economic feasibility. The industry needs innovative technologies to increase production rates, increase the stability of microbial cultures, and extend the active production lifetime. Current technologies are largely focused on increasing the performance of individual cells by selecting the strongest clones. Complex genetic algorithms to control the population structure of microbial cultures inside bioreactors promise to increase fermentation process productivity by several folds.
Technology Vision
AsimicA’s innovation, Microbial Stem Cell Technology (MiST) promises to uncouple product synthesis from cell health and reproduction by converting microbial cultures into multicellular systems. One cell type is responsible for product synthesis (factory cells), while another fulfills the task of cell proliferation and biomass growth (stem cells). Whereas conventional culture stops growing soon after the biosynthetic production begins, a microbial culture enhanced with MiST can continue growing, so more product can be harvested in each production cycle.
Potential for Impact
Implementing MiST for industrial bioprocesses can increase productivity by several folds, and build the bridge toward continuous fermentation cycles. Decoupling production and culture regeneration functions is particularly important for the biosynthesis of biofuels, where a high rate of target molecule biosynthesis causes growth arrest. Resolving the growth inhibition issue using MiST can even exceed the three-fold productivity increase target. With that, biological production of fuel substances can finally become competitive with petroleum-based manufacturing.
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