Scientific program

DSM-Firmenich

Email Daniel

Novonesis

Microbes like E. coli and S. cerevisiae have been used to produce a large variety of products via fermentation, ranging from active pharmaceutical ingredients, flavors and fragrances to enzymes and commodity chemicals. These well-characterized microbes are however not always optimal for production processes at large scale, where heterogeneities can impact strain performance. This session focuses on approaches to design, engineer and test organisms for efficient production in heterogeneous, large-scale bioreactors. This includes exploration of natural biodiversity and use of non-standard organisms that provide intrinsic advantages to fermentation at large scale.

Hayley Speirs – Cargill
Stefan de Kok – Ohr Synbiosis

This session is an opportunity to share experiences from both up-scaling and down-scaling fermentation processes. As the field of fermentation technology has matured, with many miniaturized fermentation systems, advanced process analytical tools and predictive models based on data science, scaling up and down remains a key bottleneck in the advancement of many bioprocesses. A key focus of this session will be highlighting unique approaches, tools and methods to improve scaling as well as stories from scaling non-model micro-organisms and processes especially those processes using sustainable and non-conventional raw materials (gas, waste).

Alex McVey – Ogibiotec (OGI Bio Ltd)
Alison Arnold – Ingenza Ltd
Chris Stowers – Kerry

The rapidly growing biomanufacturing market encompasses a wide range of sectors including agriculture, food, healthcare, defense, and consumer goods. Innovative ways to deliver practical and efficient integration between upstream and downstream process are necessary to successfully meet product demand. Increasingly unique upstream operating conditions set the foundation for downstream activities, which focus on the recovery, purification, formulation and post-processing of broad spectrum, customer-driven product specifications. Therefore, effective cost and technical management combined with process data integration across disciplines from lab, through pilot, to manufacturing are essential to ensure the scalability and economic viability of these diverse bioprocesses. This session explores the intricate interplay between these stages, emphasizing a holistic approach to bioprocessing with important consideration of capital investment, operating expenditure, and active techno-economic assessment to enhance productivity and sustainability in the biomanufacturing sector.

Sarita Chauhan – GEA
Brad Cox – Corteva

Successful biomanufacturing relies on high quality and highly productive fermentation processes. Developing and maintaining these processes requires a high level of process knowledge, understanding and control. In turn, each of these rely on generating, processing and visualising high quality data. As we move into the era of Engineering 4.0 and AI, with increasing process analytical technology outputs and more I/O points logged than ever, the volume and types of data being collected become larger and more varied. This session will explore cutting-edge methodologies for seamless data acquisition, and robust data management strategies for efficient storage and access. We will showcase the integration of manufacturing and R&D data, and how AI and deep learning are transforming data mining. We invite industry experts and thought leaders to share their insights and innovations, helping attendees discover the future of biomanufacturing in the digital age. Join us to optimize biomanufacturing workflows, drive innovation, and achieve unprecedented levels of efficiency and precision.

Tim Davies – Corteva
Stuart M. Stocks – Novonesis

Fermentation is where organic biology and mechanical and/or chemical process control meet, interact and balance. A successful fermentation process development relies on a good understanding of both. A modeling approach has been proven as useful tool to improve such understanding by meeting various needs in process development, improvement, troubleshooting as well as novel control development. To demonstrate the power of modeling and novel process control, this session will highlight the efforts in fermentation/bioprocess model development, optimization, and applications, such as kinetic modeling (machine-learning and/or other ‘black box’ models, metabolic models, GSMM, ‘hybrid’ models, etc.), CFD for bioreactor design and spatial gradient characterization, integration of models (data-driven or mechanistic) for control as well as general novel process control development that improves product yield and/or process robustness, etc. Application to process development and routine manufacturing is equally welcome.

Keith Smith – Applied Materials
Zhiguo Liu – Merck

Industrial scale fermentation is traditionally associated with batch or fed-batch processes, which have delivered strong performance for a multitude of products over the past century. However, with the expected boom in biological solutions, the bioprocess industry could be forced to rethink its traditional ways of both fermenter design and operation, to find solutions that significantly improve process productivity and reduce cost. Concepts like oxygen injection/enrichment, continuous operation and/or cell-recycling remain rather unexplored at industrial scale, despite being widely studied in academia. What are the underlying barriers preventing their adoption, and how can they be overcome, if at all? This session explores current best practices and emerging advancements in fermentation operation modes, process intensification, and energy optimization. Through case studies and expert insights, we aim to identify strategies for breaking through traditional constraints and unlocking the full potential of new fermentation concepts.

Mickel Jansen – dsm-firmenich
Benny Cassells – Novonesis

The production of heterologous proteins always was – and likely remains – an important pillar of biomanufacturing. Enzymes play key roles in the production of food, as biocatalysts in chemical reactions or as biopharmaceuticals. Accordingly, their straightforward production using proper hosts and processes is important for commercial success. However, ‘difficult-to-express’ proteins occur more often than wanted in the labs. This is why technologies are needed to check the production capacities of said proteins already in early steps of bioprocess development.

Michael Resch – National Renewable Energy Laboratory
Ralf Takors – University of Stuttgart

Poster presentations are an integral part of the RAFT® technical program as they showcase cutting-edge developments, extend the technical scope of the program, and provide opportunities for in-depth one-on-one discussions. The posters of today represent the industry of tomorrow, so be sure to stop by and speak to the presenters!

Ed Talideh – Lallemand Bio-Ingredients
Heather Jones –