Eden Bio

Eden Bio is using machine learning to guide strain engineering and improve the precision fermentation process; helping the world transition from traditional farming methods to a process that’s more sustainable, animal-free and better for the environment.

Traditional farming methods are unsustainable and produce huge levels of greenhouse gases, but the precision fermentation revolution is here: Precision fermentation is a process of using “cellular factories” to produce organic molecules. This allows the production of large amounts of molecules that are found at a low concentration in their native organisms. In this way, we lower the economic, labour, and environmental costs of biomolecule production. Costs are now decreasing at a rapid pace: a 2019 report from the RethinkX think-tank suggests that by 2030, the cost of proteins produced by fermentation will be a fifth of that of animal-derived proteins. As precision fermentation products emerge as economically feasible alternatives, they drive innovation in the food, materials and cosmetics industries, among others. The future of many industries depends on precision fermentation, but they all struggle with the problem of low yield of the fermented products. Transforming genes into microorganisms is a relatively well-understood process, but after the transformation, strain engineering needs to take place to remove bottlenecks and interference within the metabolic networks of the cell. Traditional strain engineering is a labour-intensive process that relies on scientists trying edits that worked in other situations and then proceeding through trial and error over multiple design-build-test engineering cycles. But machine learning can solve the protein yield problem: computational models can choose the right edits out of infinite possibilities. Eden Bio employs proprietary machine learning technologies to maximise protein secretion and direct the movement of proteins within cells. Our technology builds a feedback loop, where experiments we carry out provide more data to strengthen our machine learning model, leading to faster iteration through the design space, higher protein yield, lower R&D costs and increased profit. Eden Bio is based at the centre of cutting-edge research, in a synthetic biology ecosystem growing up in West London. We’re based in state-of-the-art labs in Scale Space, a new community for innovative businesses looking to scale. Across the road is the Imperial College Translation and Innovation hub, which gives us access to a world-leading hub of synthetic biology and advisors at the cutting-edge of research.