Grant: Applied Research and Development Grants - Level 1

Cell-free protein production offers promising new avenues, however, today's production of any sort of custom recombinant protein can take weeks. The development of an economically feasible cell-free protein expression platform can have a significant impact on speeding up biomolecular research. As well, it can enable the discovery, production, and delivery of new therapeutics including recombinant proteins, which represents a sizeable opportunity. Liberum Biotech (Liberum) is a provider of protein manufacturing services intended to democratize access to the fruits of synthetic biology. A start-up company in Toronto, Ontario, Liberum's services use proprietary molecular and hardware technology to speed up the production of enzymes, therapeutics, and lab reagents. Specifically, their technology automates protein expression and purification to reduce the time and cost required for making protein-based therapeutics. Although Liberum technology is robust, further enhancements and optimization are needed. The collaborative project with Lambton College will focus on the scale-up fermentation and downstream processes for large-scale manufacturing of cell-free protein production systems. To do this, an experimental approach will be adopted to optimize Liberum's processes in support of large-scale production. Developing an improved cell-free production process would allow Liberum to significantly reduce the cost of its product, increase its margin, and attract $2.4 million in seed funding for the next year. The project will also allow for the creation of two new employment positions in Liberum over the following months. Since numerous synthetic biology and cell-free protein production companies have been established in the United States, the success of this project will support innovation and growth of this emerging disruptive sector and move Canada forward in next-generation protein production.