French yeast manufacturer Lesaffre and Recombia Biosciences have partnered to advance a gene editing technology for the sustainable production of fermented ingredients.

Using Recombia’s proprietary gene editing technologies, the partnership aims to generate “thousands of new yeast strains” while optimizing the production of biosourced ingredients.

“We see tremendous potential to leverage our expertise in genome editing and synthetic biology to develop new and innovative fermentation solutions and products,” says Dr. Justin Smith, CEO of Recombia Biosciences. 

Recombia Biosciences was founded by three Stanford University researchers in 2019 as a spin-off from the Stanford Genome Technology Center (SGTC), in the US. 

Its technologies are based upon techniques that increase the efficiency of genome editing and enable engineering of yeast at very high throughput. 

“The technology has broad utility and can be readily applied also to the development of non-genetically modified organisms,” adds Carmen Arruda, R&I manager at Lesaffre.

“With Recombia, Lesaffre can now explore a larger space of metabolic engineering hypotheses, develop prototype organisms at a faster pace, accelerate the design of appropriate selecions and screenings of strains generated by classical breeding methods. We’re excited to see what the future holds.” 

Entry into synthetic biology
The partnership signals Lesaffre’s entry into the world of Synthetic Biology, which the company notes is considered to be a major biotechnological opportunity of this decade.

“This kind of partnership exemplifies an innovative way that industry can support and foster progress in Biotechnology,” says Antoine Baule, CEO of Lesaffre.

“Through collaborations with scientists and entrepreneurs, we will be able to find new solutions, which will be beneficial for the future, especially in health or in environment protection.”

Recombia is exclusively licensing four genome engineering technologies from Stanford University for their work. 

Bridging industry with academia
While precision genome editing has certainly advanced recently, there are still challenges, especially in making many genetic changes in parallel, notes Dr. Bob St.Onge, COO and co-founder of Recombia Biosciences. 

“Recombia’s technologies enable industrial yeast strain engineering by dramatically increasing the efficiency of high-throughput genome editing,” he remarks. 

St.onge and Smith co-founded the company with Professor Lars Steinmetz. The team has had a significant working relationship at the Stanford Genome Technology Center (SGTC). 

“I’m very excited to see the technologies we developed in academia applied in the industrial sector,” comments Steinmetz.  

“The Genome Technology Center has a long history of genomics technology development. I’m confident Recombia will continue in the tradition of the other successful companies that have spun out of the SGTC.”

Unlocking the genome for new ingredients
Genomic research is widely applicable across food-tech applications. For instance, this type of analysis is employed to map the “chemical fingerprint” of chocolate, using the genes of the tree that cacao pods are harvested from.

Also in this space, seed breeding specialist Equinom is leveraging its advanced breeding techniques to promote agricultural biodiversity. The company upholds its pivotal position in inducing better crop resilience and increased yield.

Meanwhile, a genomic study comparing historic and modern wheat varieties recently revealed an increase in dietary fiber and a decrease in acrylamide, indicating that white bread is not as unhealthy as it has often been portrayed.