Biomanufacturing is booming!

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Presentation: 

October 7th is National Manufacturing Day. To celebrate, three InnovATEBIO members talked about their work on biomanufacturing and biomanufacturing education.
 
Topics and Speakers:
 
1. New kits for teaching biomanufacturing concepts in high school
Dr. Jan Chalupny, Shoreline Community College, Cell and Immunotherapy Hub, DUE 2054990

Description:  Dr. Chalupny has been working with high shool teacher partners to develop kits for teaching biomanufacturing concepts in the high school classroom.  She will describe the kits, their contents, and how they were developed.

- Learn about ALL of the great Shoreline Community College biotech education resources on this page

- Learn more about the biomanufacturing kit here.
 


2. Mushrooms as a model system for biomanufacturing
Dr. James Hewlett, CoPI InnovATEBIO, Finger Lakes Community College

Description: Dr. Hewlett's class and interns have been collaborating with an industry partner on producing products from fungi.  Hewlett and his students are collaborating with Leep Foods, a company that grows mycelium and sells it as a neutraceutical.  Fungi are being used by a few biotech companies for manufacturing products.  MycoWorks, a company in San Francisco, uses fungi to produce apparel, bricks, furniture, footwear, and leather. Ecovative, in Albany, NY, uses fungi to make bacon, a high performance foam, and a composite materials for construction.


3.  Manufacturing phage in cell free systems
Dr. Bruce Nash, InnovATEBIO, DNA Learning Center, Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory

Description: Dr. Nash is a CoPI on a new NSF grant with researchers at the University of Minnesota.  The U of M group is working to develop technology for cell-free engineering and biomanufacturing of phage.  A cell-free system for producing phage would be advantageous since it would eliminate the need to produce phage by growing them in pathogenic bacteria. This would also minimize the problems that could result from contaminating a phage preparation with the lipopolysaccharides (LPS) from bacterial membranes.