Opera Bioscience: Recombinant proteins, growth factors, via ‘unique’ bacterial host
A spinoff from Northwestern University in Chicago, Opera Bioscience deploys precision fermentation with a “unique” bacterial host (not E.Coli) to make proteins for the food industry, from whey and casein to growth factors for cultivated meat and seafood, said CEO Gerry Sapienza: “No one else has anything even close to our strain on the bacterial side; it can fully secrete the proteins [which means you can significantly cut downstream purification costs].”
He added: “We're early stage, so we're not in the production phase yet, we're testing a lot of these proteins to make sure we can get the yields that we think we can, and then it's a case of scaling up.”