(737g) Bioproduct Design through Market Assessment: NSF Innovation Corps (I-CorpsTM) Participation Guides the Development of New Escherichia coli Strains

Host cell proteins (HCPs) complicate the recovery of biologically-derived products due to their presence as the target product is isolated by various unit operations that include chromatography, precipitation, and other common bioseparation techniques. While the technology exists to rewrite the genome of the host cell used for expression, few have attempted to use these technologies to reduce HCP burden on the bioseparation steps. Such a space to investigate is quite large because of the number of different techniques and conditions used for bioseparation. Nevertheless, our team set out to elucidate a product design that could gain traction with academia and industry. Participation in the I-Corps^TM program defined the characteristics of a minimum viable product through a combination of hypothesis-driven discovery and potential end-user comments.

To wit, a target bioseparation technique (diethylaminoethyl or DEAE ion exchange chromatography) and improvement threshold was identified based on extensive discussions with potential end-users, and a minimum viable product was constructed. An engineered Escherichia coli cell line (Lotus®) was built via homologous recombination that displays excellent fermentation and expression characteristics. Moreover, DEAE column capacity was improved by 37% based on chromatography breakthrough data. This presentation will describe the fundamental research efforts, I-Corps^TM participation, minimum viable product development, and finally the assessment of the effort.