“Increasing biosynthesis efficiency: a materials-based approach”
Kevin Shani, S.B. ’18, bioengineering
Advisor: Neel Joshi, Associate Professor of Chemical and Biological Engineering
Despite technological advances over the past few decades, yeasts that are commonly utilized in industrial fermentation processes use a considerable amount of energy from the nutrients in the product (such as beer or wine) for cellular replication, rather than for the desired fermentation process. Shani sought to create a metal-phenolic (MPN) composition to modulate the metabolism of yeast cells by inhibiting cellular growth, while also maintaining the viability of the yeast cells under the harsh conditions of fermentation. He found that yeast cells coated with MPN use nutrients more efficiently and are better able to channel the carbon they consume toward fermentation. By adding iron ions and polyphenol into the fermentation broth, Shani was able to allow for instantaneous coating for the yeast cells, which served as a barrier against the harsh external stressors of fermentation. Ultimately, he was able to demonstrate an easily scalable method that is faster and cheaper than the genetic engineering approaches currently being used in the industry.
“Experimentally, this project was very labor-intensive and time-demanding, especially when we were analytically observing in parallel the growth, nutrient consumption, and metabolite production of coated and native yeast cells. Since this research has a strict timeline and the experiments span in the range of weeks, you need to be very careful in time-management during experiment design and execution,” he said. “The interdisciplinary nature of this project was intellectually very satisfying for me since it touches on multiple areas of study at the same time: materials science, metabolic engineering, mechanics, and instrumentation.”