Industrial Biotechnology

Industrial biotechnology is central to the bioeconomy transition, replacing petrochemical processes with engineered microbial routes for fuels, materials, and chemicals. GSBG 2027 will cover directed evolution and machine-learning-guided enzyme design for plastic depolymerization (PETase, MHETase, FAST-PETase), CO2-fixing chemolithoautotrophs (LanzaTech), and engineered yeast for cannabinoids, opioids, and rare natural products. Sessions will examine continuous bioprocessing, downstream purification advances (single-pass tangential flow, magnetic bead capture), digital twins for bioreactor control, and the scale-up bottlenecks that determine whether a strain in flask becomes a 200,000-liter commercial product.