Biomanufacturing & Fermentation Technology

prasad ernala

Welcome to Biomanufacturing & Fermentation Technology, the podcast where microbes meet manufacturing and science turns into scalable reality. In each episode, we dive inside real bioprocesses. from lab-scale experiments to commercial fermenters. to unpack how products are actually made, fixed, and optimized in the real world. Expect candid conversations on fermentation failures and breakthroughs, scale-up war stories, regulatory realities, emerging technologies, and the decisions that separate a promising culture from a profitable process. Whether you are a scientist, engineer, entrepreneur, o

  1. Biomass Separation Strategies in Microbial Fermentation

    12小時前

    Biomass Separation Strategies in Microbial Fermentation

    In this episode we focus on the technical criteria for selecting biomass separation strategies in microbial fermentation, focusing on how cell morphology, broth rheology, and product localization dictate industrial success. It explains that bacterial systems often require centrifugation due to their small size and tendency to form compressible cakes, though this carries a risk of shear-induced lysis. In contrast, filamentous fungal processes rely on morphological control to manage high viscosity and ensure efficient filtration. The discussion further highlight how extracellular polymers and solids load act as critical variables that can cause membrane fouling or hydraulic failure. Ultimately, the overview emphasizes that a robust harvest strategy must balance throughput requirements with the need to minimize impurity release based on whether the desired product is intracellular or extracellular. #Bioprocess #ScaleUp and #TechTransfer, #Industrial #Microbiology, #MetabolicEngineering and #SystemsBiology, #Bioprocessing, #MicrobialFermentation, #Bio-manufacturing, #Industrial #Biotechnology, #Fermentation Engineering, #ProcessDevelopment, #Microbiology, #Biochemistry #Biochemical Engineering, #Applied #MicrobialPhysiology, #Microbial #ProcessEngineering, #Upstream #BioprocessDevelopment, #Downstream Processing and #Purification, #CellCulture and #MicrobialSystems Engineering, #Bioreaction #Enzymes #Biocatalyst #scientific #Scientist #Research

    19 分鐘
  2. Circular Biomanufacturing: Waste Valorization in Integrated Production Systems

    1日前

    Circular Biomanufacturing: Waste Valorization in Integrated Production Systems

    This episode explores the transition of industrial biomanufacturing from a linear waste-heavy model to a circular system that treats side streams as valuable assets. Successful valorization requires a multidisciplinary approach combining process intensification, sophisticated separation technologies, and engineered microorganisms capable of handling inconsistent feedstocks. The discussion highlights three primary archetypes: converting agricultural residues into biopolymers, repurposing pharmaceutical waste as animal feed, and upcycling brewery grains into proteins or packaging. Ultimately, the shift toward a circular bioeconomy depends on overcoming the engineering complexity of integrating variable waste streams without compromising primary production economics. Achieving these sustainability goals requires specification alignment and a robust framework for managing the chemical heterogeneity of industrial byproducts. #Bioprocess #ScaleUp and #TechTransfer,#Industrial #Microbiology,#MetabolicEngineering and #SystemsBiology,#Bioprocessing,#MicrobialFermentation,#Bio-manufacturing,#Industrial #Biotechnology,#Fermentation Engineering,#ProcessDevelopment,#Microbiology,#Biochemistry,#Biochemical Engineering, #Applied #MicrobialPhysiology, #Microbial #ProcessEngineering, #Upstream #BioprocessDevelopment, #Downstream Processing and #Purification,#CellCulture and #MicrobialSystems Engineering, #Bioreaction #Enzymes, #Biocatalyst #scientific #Scientist #Research

    16 分鐘
  3. Downstream Digital Twins: Predicting Performance and Managing Process Drift

    2日前

    Downstream Digital Twins: Predicting Performance and Managing Process Drift

    Downstream bioprocessing is often unstable due to upstream variability and equipment aging. Digital twins use mechanistic and hybrid models to predict fouling, optimize chromatography, and perform root-cause analysis, shifting DSP from reactive craft to predictive science. Downstream Digital Twins Are Shifting DSP From Reactive Firefighting to Predictive Control Mechanistic and hybrid digital twins across clarification, chromatography, and UF/DF are enabling earlier detection of fouling, breakthrough drift, and endpoint risk, before yield and schedule are lost. DSP Failures Are Rarely Single-Point Issues. Variability Chains Start Upstream and Surface Downstream Industry evidence reinforces that harvest properties such as viscosity, conductivity, solids, and impurity maps act as boundary conditions that dominate DSP performance, challenging siloed optimization models. Hybrid and Surrogate Models Are Making Mechanistic Chromatography Usable in Real Time Accelerated solvers built on mechanistic foundations are emerging as practical tools for in-run optimization and hypothesis testing, though governance gaps remain a major adoption risk. Root-Cause Analysis Is Becoming a Primary Value Driver for DSP Digital Twins Instead of post-hoc opinions, digital twins are increasingly used to test resin aging, buffer deviation, feed variability, and equipment drift in silico, supporting continued process verification and deviation investigations. Organizational Incentives, Not Technology, Are the Biggest Barrier to Co-Twin Success Without shared upstream–downstream KPIs and robust event capture, digital twins risk becoming sophisticated blame-assignment tools rather than systems that prevent variability and yield loss. #Bioprocess #ScaleUp and #TechTransfer,#Industrial #Microbiology,#MetabolicEngineering and #SystemsBiology,#Bioprocessing,#MicrobialFermentation,#Bio-manufacturing,#Industrial #Biotechnology,#Fermentation Engineering,#ProcessDevelopment,#Microbiology,#Biochemistry,#Biochemical Engineering, #Applied #MicrobialPhysiology, #Microbial #ProcessEngineering, #Upstream #BioprocessDevelopment, #Downstream Processing and #Purification,#CellCulture and #MicrobialSystems Engineering, #Bioreaction #Enzymes, #Biocatalyst #scientific #Scientist #Research

    15 分鐘
  4. Microbe-Derived Therapeutics: Next-Generation Drug Discovery Through Engineered Microbial Systems

    3日前

    Microbe-Derived Therapeutics: Next-Generation Drug Discovery Through Engineered Microbial Systems

    The emergence of microbe-derived therapeutics represents a fundamental shift from traditional drug discovery toward the use of engineered biological systems as both production factories and living medicines. These sources explain how advancements in synthetic biology and genetic engineering allow microbes to synthesize complex molecules, such as insulin, or act as intelligent couriers that sense and treat disease locally within the body. Unlike static chemical drugs, these living agents must be designed for evolutionary stability and biocontainment to ensure they do not mutate or persist unintentionally. The literature emphasizes that while AI and CRISPR accelerate the design of these systems, success depends on managing the metabolic burden placed on the host cell and navigating unique regulatory and safety hurdles. Ultimately, the field is moving toward a model where functional complexity is encoded directly into genetic programs, offering new solutions for targets that are unreachable by conventional small molecules. #Bioprocess #ScaleUp and #TechTransfer,#Industrial #Microbiology,#MetabolicEngineering and #SystemsBiology,#Bioprocessing,#MicrobialFermentation,#Bio-manufacturing,#Industrial #Biotechnology,#Fermentation Engineering,#ProcessDevelopment,#Microbiology,#Biochemistry,#Biochemical Engineering, #Applied #MicrobialPhysiology, #Microbial #ProcessEngineering, #Upstream #BioprocessDevelopment, #Downstream Processing and #Purification,#CellCulture and #MicrobialSystems Engineering, #Bioreaction #Enzymes, #Biocatalyst #scientific #Scientist #Research

    17 分鐘
  5. Bio-manufacturing and Fermentation Technology. (2026 February first week edition)

    4日前

    Bio-manufacturing and Fermentation Technology. (2026 February first week edition)

    Across microbial fermentation and bio-catalysis, new data is forcing us to rethink where cost curves bend, where scale-up really fails, and where regulation is no longer the bottleneck we thought it was. If you are designing strains, scaling reactors, running manufacturing campaigns, or deciding where to place your next technical bet, this week’s signals matter. Upstream: B. licheniformis OP16‑2 converts untreated corn steep water to lactic acid under thermo‑alkaline conditions without nutrient supplementation, challenging the “must‑sterilize + must‑supplement” assumption. Scale reality: At industrial volume, spatial gradients and high shear can collapse uptake/viability and cascade into DSP fouling—robust operating points often beat “optimal” lab settings. Infrastructure signal: BioMADE is building shared pilot capacity (up to 10,000‑L fermenters plus downstream) to de‑risk scale-up for many teams without each one funding full CAPEX. Contrarian (boardroom): “Cell‑free scales universally” is constrained by mass‑balance/energy economics at larger volumes, so it tends to fit niche high‑value use cases or hybrid workflows rather than bulk commodities. Governance: FDA’s Jan 2025 draft guidance formalizes a risk‑based credibility framework for using AI model outputs in regulatory decision‑making for drugs/biologics, making data/validation strategy a competitive lever. References: 1.       Selim,M.T., Salem, S.S., El-Belely, E.F. et al. Nutrient-free biorefinery of corn steepwater into lactic acid by Bacillus licheniformis OP16-2 under thermo-alkaline conditions witha pilot-scale assessment. Sci Rep 16, 4357 (2026).https://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-026-35828-4 ​#Bioprocess #ScaleUp and #TechTransfer,#Industrial #Microbiology,#MetabolicEngineering and #SystemsBiology,#Bioprocessing,#MicrobialFermentation,#Bio-manufacturing,#Industrial #Biotechnology,#Fermentation Engineering,#ProcessDevelopment,#Microbiology,#Biochemistry,#Biochemical Engineering, #Applied #MicrobialPhysiology, #Microbial #ProcessEngineering, #Upstream #BioprocessDevelopment, #Downstream Processing and #Purification,#CellCulture and #MicrobialSystems Engineering, #Bioreaction #Enzymes, #Biocatalyst #scientific #Scientist #Research

    11 分鐘
  6. Risk Allocation in Industrial Microbial Biomass Separation

    5日前

    Risk Allocation in Industrial Microbial Biomass Separation

    The primary focus of this episode is to explore a framework for managing biomass separation in industrial microbial manufacturing, framing it as a strategic exercise in risk allocation rather than simple efficiency maximization. It evaluates the physical and economic trade-offs between centrifugation, which carries risks related to mechanical shear and impurity propagation, and filtration, which is bounded by fouling kinetics and consumable costs. The discussion emphasize that industrial robustness is determined by coupled variables like particle population dynamics and hydrodynamics, where failures often manifest as reduced downstream capacity or increased downtime. To mitigate these risks, the text advocates for hybrid separation trains that distribute the burden of clarifying complex broths across multiple stages to ensure process stability. Ultimately, the documentation suggests using predictive monitoring, such as tracking pressure rise rates and turbidity slopes, to maintain predictable performance across large-scale production campaigns. #Bioprocess #ScaleUp and #TechTransfer, #Industrial #Microbiology, #MetabolicEngineering and #SystemsBiology, #Bioprocessing, #MicrobialFermentation, #Bio-manufacturing, #Industrial #Biotechnology, #Fermentation Engineering, #ProcessDevelopment, #Microbiology, #Biochemistry #Biochemical Engineering, #Applied #MicrobialPhysiology, #Microbial #ProcessEngineering, #Upstream #BioprocessDevelopment, #Downstream Processing and #Purification, #CellCulture and #MicrobialSystems Engineering, #Bioreaction #Enzymes #Biocatalyst #scientific #Scientist #Research

    19 分鐘
  7. Quantum Fermentation: Exploring Sub-Atomic Interactions for Enhanced Yield

    6日前

    Quantum Fermentation: Exploring Sub-Atomic Interactions for Enhanced Yield

    The most credible “quantum lever” in fermentation is not macroscopic entanglement across cells; it is the possibility that some rate‑limiting metabolic steps already rely partly on quantum tunneling of hydrogen, and that enzymes modulate tunneling through protein dynamics and active-site geometry. This implies a nontrivial proposition: for specific steps, improving yield may require engineering not only binding and classical transition-state stabilization, but also the barrier width and donor–acceptor distance distribution that controls tunneling probability. Reviews linking hydrogen tunneling to protein dynamics make precisely this point: a successful treatment of H‑tunneling requires multidimensional models that include environmental/protein motions, rather than a purely static barrier picture. The constraint is equally important:even if tunneling enhances a specific enzyme step, fermentation yield is a systems property, and local kinetic gains will translate into yield only when pathway control structure and cellular constraints permit that gain to propagate to net production. #Bioprocess #ScaleUp and #TechTransfer,#Industrial #Microbiology,#MetabolicEngineering and #SystemsBiology,#Bioprocessing,#MicrobialFermentation,#Bio-manufacturing,#Industrial #Biotechnology,#Fermentation Engineering,#ProcessDevelopment,#Microbiology,#Biochemistry,#Biochemical Engineering, #Applied #MicrobialPhysiology, #Microbial #ProcessEngineering, #Upstream #BioprocessDevelopment, #Downstream Processing and #Purification,#CellCulture and #MicrobialSystems Engineering, #Bioreaction #Enzymes, #Biocatalyst #scientific #Scientist #Research

    15 分鐘

關於

Welcome to Biomanufacturing & Fermentation Technology, the podcast where microbes meet manufacturing and science turns into scalable reality. In each episode, we dive inside real bioprocesses. from lab-scale experiments to commercial fermenters. to unpack how products are actually made, fixed, and optimized in the real world. Expect candid conversations on fermentation failures and breakthroughs, scale-up war stories, regulatory realities, emerging technologies, and the decisions that separate a promising culture from a profitable process. Whether you are a scientist, engineer, entrepreneur, o