Highlighting innovation

Proteins are essential across many aspects of our lives, from food and therapeutics, to the industrial enzymes currently in use to degrade plastics and other undesirable climate-damaging products out there. Eden Bio was founded in 2022 with the vision of using machine learning to optimise how these proteins get produced. Using their suite of computational and wet-lab tools, the team quickly screen the many possible genetic modifications that can be made to fungal strains to improve how much protein the strain can produce, helping their customers improve their yield and get their exciting new protein products to market quicker.

Aonghus Topham

February 27, 2023

Apeikon Therapeutics has developed a revolutionary new technology for cancer treatment. As a spin-out company, Apeikon was born out of the significant discoveries made over the last 14 years at King’s College London by Dr Maya Thanou. Apeikon Therapeutics is working on a novel technology that will substantially improve the efficacy and reduce the side effects of cancer drugs through directed activation of drug delivery.

February 23, 2023

With recent progress in developing tools that can manipulate genetic material, the concept of ‘Synthetic Biology’ has rapidly evolved and applies the principles of engineering to the world of biotechnology. Early research focussed on the alteration of simple pathways, but now the creation of entirely synthetic microorganisms is possible. Genetic modification has often been a controversial issue in the context of our food systems, but employing new technologies which introduce beneficial properties to our food may help to pave a new way forward for the debate in this area.

January 25, 2023

Throughout this series, we’ll be focusing onto antibiotics and the problem associated with antimicrobial resistance. Antimicrobial resistance (AMR) can occur when microorganisms gain mechanistic advantages which allow them to survive exposure to therapeutic agents such as antibiotics, antifungals, or antivirals. There are many ways microbes can obtain resistance, such as genetic mutations and the transfer of genes, but what proliferates and pushes resistance to happen more rapidly are selective pressures.

January 12, 2023

‘Umkele’ take their name from the Zulu word for the Puzzle Bush, a plant said to have magical properties. Like their namesake, Umkele are setting out to do something miraculous…

December 16, 2022

Alt Atlas is taking a systemic approach to cultivated meat, by gaining an in-depth understanding of stem cells on a genomic, transcriptomic and metabolomic level. Through this, they are continuously developing optimised solutions that can plug in and out of industrial bio-processes. As the cell lines are linked to its proprietary platform, Alt Atlas allows a faster turnaround for an efficient manufacturing.

Charles Leach

December 8, 2022

The UK Government has recently launched a “call for evidence” to gather information about how animal feed products could be used to reduce methane emissions. Through this initiative, stakeholders can help contribute to future policy that shapes the type of animal feed we produce, aiming to reduce the environmental impact of livestock production.

November 3, 2022

In a recent publication, Beta Bugs argued that farming requires redefinition. Pressure on farmers to consider alternative farm practices has been raised to a fever pitch, thanks to the 3-in-1 deleterious effects of food waste, deforestation, and carbon emissions of current farming methods. In navigating a viable way forward for the agricultural industry, farmers are increasingly shifting their attention to insect farming, which will help bring a new face to agriculture.

November 2, 2022

With Facebook's recent company name-switch to Meta, the Metaverse is a rapidly evolving concept that has hit many headlines in the past year. But how will the food industry be involved and what will food in the Metaverse look like?

October 4, 2022

London, September 2022 - The Innovators Club, a network accelerator programme run by non-profit Science Entrepreneur Club (SEC), has today announced its third cohort welcoming six startups innovating in the field of synthetic biology (SynBio).

September 27, 2022