Fermentation development of a secondary metabolite: applying multiple tools in an integrated bioprocess development program to accelerate process improvements

Dow AgroSciences is an agribusiness subsidiary of The Dow Chemical Company engaged in the development of new agricultural solutions to help farmers increase crop productivity in a sustainable manner.  One such product is an agriculturally relevant secondary metabolite produced by a Streptomyces sp.  The DAS development program involves the highly integrated applications of classic strain improvement by random mutagenesis, metabolic engineering, systems engineering, and fermentation process development.  This presentation will review how these facets contributed to a rapid acceleration in productivity gains resulting in a 75% improvement in titer over a one-year period and the successful scale-up to 30 kL.