Exploring Biodiversity
Screening natural microorganisms, cell metabolites, new enzymes and industrially significant genes in the environment is an important part of our work in microbial biodiversity usage. Russian Collection of Industrial Microorganisms (VKPM) – division of Genetika – is a key participant of the screening programs. VKPM deposits more than 17 000 of non-pathogenic microorganisms in all.
Genetika supplies all the necessary conditions for extensive screening (thousands of clones per day):
• Robotic stations and the equipment for application of 96- and 386- plates
• Facilities for strains cultivation in flasks (up to 1000 flasks simultaneously) and in test-tubes (up to several thousands)
• Various analytic equipment (HPLC, GC, LC-MS, etc.).
Microbial Strains and Cell Cultures Design
Strain construction is aimed at forcing the strains and cell cultures to produce important metabolites and proteins, which could be used in the pharmaceutical and chemical industries, agriculture. More than 20 species of industrial microorganisms, including different species of bacteria (E.coli, Pseudomonas, Bacillus, Alcaligenes), actinomycetes (Streptomyces, Rhodococcus), yeast (Saccharomyces, Yarrowia, Pichia), fungi (Rhizopus) and also mammalian cells are our subjects for further development. We use non-infringing unique vector systems, with original replicons and promoters, which provide super expression of target proteins. A wide range of methods is used for strains development, including classical approaches, based on obtaining random mutations, selection and fitness, and modern DNA technologies, metabolic engineering and gene improving based on bioinformatics.
Process Development and Optimization
Genetika facilities allow us to provide of high quality biomanufacturing services for production of pre-clinical and clinical trial materials under cGMP.
The set of systems for cultivation of microorganisms (fermenters from 1 L up to 200 L) and cell cultures (roller bottles and bag bioreactors) is suitable for development and scaling up.
Separate down-stream processes for microbial and cell cultural products are designed in compliance with the requirements for pilot-scale production of API.
