Moving Towards a UK Bioeconomy: How Natural Product Biotechnology Fits

with UK Strategy

Yvonne Armitage, KTN

BEACON 3rd Annual Conference,

25th March 2015

KTN Communities, Projects & Business Programmes

Materials Chemistry

Environmental Services

Agri-Food Biosciences

Health

ICT Electronics, Sensors & Photonics Defence & Security Space

Built Environment

Transport Energy

Creative Industries

Digital Economy Design

Bringing together groups who would not normally meet

Bioeconomy: Addressing Grand Challenges

• 93% of production materials do not end up in saleable products

• 80% of products are discarded after a single use

• 99% of materials used in the production of, or contained within goods, are discarded in the first six weeks

Why not just do what we do now?

Photo courtesy of Lea Paterson

Potential bio-derived products aplenty

Journey of IB: the opportunity for growth

2009--------2015-----------------2025 £

1.8

Bn

£4

.5B

n

£1

2B

n

IB Innovation & Growth team report, 2009

Connecting it all together Industrial Biotechnology Leadership Forum

De-risking access to new products and technologies

Demonstrator facilities;

Demonstrator fund

Accelerating the innovation and knowledge transfer (KT)

process

Building on UK’s expertise; Business support; KT;

Overseas promotion of UK expertise

Retaining and developing interdisciplinary talent in science and management

Interdisciplinary talent; Industry engagement

Creating and supporting ‘public’ and ‘business’

environment for IB

Standards; Addressing impact of existing incentives; Public

procurement; Land use; Public perception

Recommendation Theme Mechanism

Dri

vin

g D

eliv

erin

g En

ablin

g

Connecting it all

together Industrial Biotechnology Leadership Forum

Events

Driving a bio-based economy in the UK

www.iblf-uk.com

Social media

Case studies

Connecting it all together

Accelerating the

innovation and KT process

Company Engagement

Total Visits

• 140 first time Company Visits

• Numerous follow up visits/discussions

• ~60 companies involved in new projects

• ~ 90 new projects

• Hurdles to uptake identified

• Key priority product/market areas identified

• Key challenges/gaps identified

• Large potential for uptake across several sectors

Accelerating the

innovation and KT process

13 Networks in Industrial Biotechnology

and Bioenergy

Accelerating the

innovation and KT process

Industrial Biotechnology Innovation Centre

14 academic members

National Industrial Biotechnology Facility

(NIBF)

Development Laboratories

• Up to 10 litre working volume

• DSP matched to plant scale up units

•Algal processing

NIBF 1

•Pilot plant to 750 L

•Plug and play processing

NIBF 2 •Centre piece is a 10,000 L fermenter • Solvent suite, distillation, wet and dry biomass processing • Focused on biomass to renewable chemicals Multi-disciplinary team

Images courtesy of CPI

De-risking access to new products and technologies

De-risking access to new products and technologies

Images courtesy of BDC

Access to Facilities

Images courtesy of the BEACON project, Wales

Project building and funding De-risking access to new products and technologies

Retaining and developing interdisciplinary talent in science and management

Addressing the the skills gap

Collaborative MSc in Industrial Biotechnology

‘Gold Standard’ Award for Process Technician in

Biotechnoloy

Creating and supporting ‘public’ and ‘business’

environment for IB

Communicating IB

Extending our reach Connecting it all

together

IBLF: The Next Steps

•IBLF will continue for another 3 years •Continue to drive uptake and skills agenda for IB •Focus on commercialisation •Key focus areas identified but needs more work to shape ‘hotspots’ •Develop new IB roadmap •Broaden the scope to include wider range of sectors •Work towards a coherent UK bioeconomy •Develop messaging for the new government •IB will contribute to delivering the growth for the chemistry-using industries

Industrial Revolution Bio-Revolution

Time for a Revolution?

products and tools from the biosphere

Exploiting Nature’s Potential

• Revolutionising the way IB is used...

• Access to ‘new’ enzymes

Specific

Robust

Faster and

Cheaper

• ‘Genes to Tons’ concept

Genomics

Proteomics

Bioinformatics

New Tools

A new generation of IB tools.....

raw materials extraction processing manufacture markets

Developing New Value Chains

UK Academic/Technology Strengths

Biocatalysis discovery and development

Natural product chemistry

Bioprocessing

Plant breeding and manipulation

UK Manufacturing Strengths

Specialty & fine chemicals

Formulation

Materials development

Process design

Strategic approach – focusing our efforts

CROSS SECTOR MULTI-DISCIPLINARY OPPORTUNITIES

Algal Bioenergy Special Interest Group

Developing a Supply Chain in the UK

Algal Biomass cultivation processing manufacture markets

Promote a sustainable & robust algal biotechnology industry in the UK

Marine Derived Products

‘Kelp Car’

“…..ultralight, superefficient plug-in hybrid with a bioplastic body made of seaweed that could be in showrooms within 15 years….”

Opportunities for Algae?

OLD CHEMICAL METHOD

Longer route, More expensive raw-material, from Animal source

NEW METHOD : INCORPORATING A SINGLE BIOCATALYTIC STEP ( Upjohn discovery )

Shorter route, Cheaper plant based raw-materials

CORTISONE : Glucocorticoid highly effective against arthritis

SEVERAL INDUSTRIAL HYDROXYLATIONS IN STEROID CHEMISTRY

STEROIDS: Hydroxylations

Case Studies: C18:1 dioic acid

Skin lightening agent

• Active ingredient in cosmetic products

• Produced through biotransformation of oleic acid, a natural fatty acid

• Based on oleic acid (C18:1) conversion to ω-dioic acid.

• An otherwise difficult chemical conversion

From ‘natural’ Ferulic acid & ‘natural’ biocatalysts

Made by Givaudan, Rhodia, SAFISIS and others

• 99% of vanillin produced is synthetic

•Natural Ferulic acid available from rice, maize etc and cheaper than vanillin.

• “Oxidative cleavage” : enzymatic hydration and retro-aldol.

• Occurs in whole cells – bacteria & fungi

2% w/w in vanilla beans 0.2% w/w in vanilla extract Natural vanillin : ~ $4,000 / kg Synthetic : ~ $25 / kg

CO2H

OH

OMe OMe

OH

CHO

‘Natural’ Vanillin

FLAVOURS: Terpene Oxidation

• Valuable flavour ingredient

• Shortages lead to price increases

• Chemical synthesis from valencene is known

• Search for biotransformation route to natural flavour

• High yields at (painfully) low concentrations

• Low yields at (not very) high concentrations

O

NOOTKATONE

CH2OCOOle

CH2OCOPal

CH2OCOPal

CH2OCOOle

CH2OCOPal

CH2OCOSte

CH2OCOOle

CH2OCOPal

CH2OCOPal

CH2OCOOle

CH2OCOSte

CH2OCOSte

Ste.CO2H

++

+

+ PalCO2H

0.19 parts

0.47 parts

0.34 partsPal = (CH2)14CH3

Ste = (CH2)16CH3

Ole = (CH2)7CH=CH(CH2)7CH3

palm oil

cocoa butter

Enzyme catalysed Inter-esterification

Cocoa Butter / ‘Structured’ Triglycerides

For further information on the activities of the IBLF

yvonne.armitage@ktn-uk.org

www.iblf-uk.com The combined force of the

IB Leadership Forum,

Knowledge Transfer Network

Innovate UK

BBSRC

and CPI