BioTork, BASF launch renewable chemicals R&D partnership
In Florida, BioTork announces collaboration with BASF to optimize certain microbial strains for the industrial production of bio-based polymers and green chemicals.
After six months of collaboration, BASF and BioTork came to the conclusion that a combination of their complementary approaches to strain development can improve the efficiency and resulting economics of biochemical production processes.
The financial terms of the partnership have not been disclosed. BASF has been conducting intensive research on the use of microorganisms for the production of proteins, enzymes, vitamins and other high value and low cost chemicals. In their natural environment, microorganisms generally synthesize these chemicals only to meet their own requirements for survival.
The challenge faced by chemical companies is to push these microorganisms to produce these chemicals faster, in much larger quantities, and under industrial conditions that are different from the microorganisms’ natural environment. This is the only way to use microorganisms for commercially viable production of chemical products. To achieve this goal, BASF is successfully using metabolic engineering techniques to make targeted modifications to certain microorganisms in order to optimize bioconversion capability, increase yield and eliminate bottlenecks.
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