Agriculture has an undeniably substantial role in global food supply. However, with an increasing population, it also contributes significantly to environmental challenges such as global warming, as well as inefficient water and land use. Therefore, it is critical to explore alternative sustainable solutions to address these challenges. One promising strategy is to utilize proteins and peptides as substitutes for animal-based food supply and chemical-based crop protection. These biomolecules can be produced more efficiently using scalable fermentation processes using renewable feedstocks, thereby offering a better environmental compatibility compared to conventional methods.
In Microbial Protein Factory group, we focus on the discovery and development of natural and synthetic peptides and proteins for applications in food and agriculture, among others. Furthermore, we apply data-driven and model-guided workflows to comprehensively understand cellular stresses that may arise during heterologous protein expression. We will leverage these understandings to engineer strains and processes to achieve a sustainable and cost-effective biomanufacturing of the protein products. We envision the outcomes will have a significant societal impact by improving agricultural productivity and sustainable food supply.
The Microbial Protein Factory group is located at The Novo Nordisk Foundation Center for Biosustainability, DTU Biosustain, and it is headed by Lei Yang.