Technological watch

The overall aim of the MeMBrane project is to improve the tolerance of microbes to the stresses encountered during industrial bioprocesses by modifying the cell membranes. Working with yeast and Propionibacterium, the project uses synthetic biology to progress and exploit our understanding of the toxicity challenges to improve efficiency and product yield of engineered cell-based factories. Membrane composition will be modelled in silico and tested in in vitro systems. Strains successfully validated at lab scale will be tested at pilot scale by our industrial partners, Lallemand and Pakmaya.

To generally increase the public perception of biology as an exciting and important science and to encourage young people to take biology into closer selection when it comes to choose a course of study, a music video was produced as part of the project.

The video is available on YouTube: “Using Biology” with music by Megson and animations by ScribbleStache.



MeMBrane is a 3-year project funded by ERA CoBioTech with a multidisciplinary consortium of academics, industrial partners and subcontractors from across Europe. The project is led by Dr Alan Goddard from Aston University.

Source: nova-Institut GmbH