Can we really change the world?
ONCE is a team of iGEM Alumni who want to make a real difference in the world (See Team). The team was originally started by Bangyan Kong and Yunzhe Kang, and eventually brought together iGEM Alumni from all over China to form this 15-member team. The team was founded on the idea that we wanted to make a project that could really change the world, to take something from an initial idea to a reality.
From our past experience, we realized that all real-world projects need to be realized through entrepreneurship, except for technological innovations in basic research in synthetic biology, which can be realized only through knowledge sharing. Therefore, we wanted to start our iGEM project by choosing a topic suitable for industrialization.
To make sure our idea was feasible, we talked to Bluepha, one of the most well-known synthetic biology startups in China.
Learning from pioneers: Supports from Bluepha
We first spoke with Xinyu Liu, head of the Open Innovation department at Bluepha.
Miss Liu highly agreed with our ideas. During our first few interactions, we realized that
- To get a technology or a product implemented into an application, sufficient resources need to be invested. These resources can usually only be obtained by obtaining sufficient funding from capital markets.
- Industrialization involves a very complex industry chain, so there are many factors to consider, and you need to find a suitable entry point and position your company in the industry chain.
For us, this is a very different task from the iGEM competition: it is much more difficult, requires more professional participation, and requires more experience. Fortunately, Bluepha and we share the same vision: we both want to create a better future using synthetic biology technology.
Bluepha and we clicked on the idea of forming an iGEM team of iGEM Alumni and thought it would be a good practice to encourage iGEMers to further engage in solving real-world problems using synthetic biology after the iGEM competition. Therefore, with the platform of Bluepha, we finally formed the first iGEM team of iGEM Alumni in China, and set the goal of the team to build a project centered on the industrialization of synthetic biology in China, and try to eventually become a successful startup.
We wanted the project to meet real-world needs, have industrial potential, and be a scientific research project. eventually, successfully developed Eventually, successfully developed lab-scale processes must be transferred to an industrial scale. Thus, after establishing our team, Bluepha provided us with additional support from their industrialization experience.
How does the synthetic biology industry work?
We talked with the Senior Director from Bluepha. Mr. Fan Bing has been working in biofermentation for 13 years. He has been a project leader in listed companies such as Guangji, Kingsway, and Andisu and incubated projects including L-lactic acid, polyglutamic acid, and industrial enzyme preparation. He has rich experience in synthetic biology industrialization.
During our conversation, Mr. Fan Bing introduced us to the history of Blue Crystal Microbiology and the main processes and key points in the successful development of a new synthetic biology product. Combining Mr. Fan Bing's presentation with the industry knowledge of our team members who have extensive commercialization experience, we gained a complete understanding of the synthetic biology industry from product selection and development to end sales. This became the basis for us to further design our project and commercialization plan.
The market we are facing
When we want to make a project successful to industrialize and change the world further, we first have to consider how to get our funding. One of our team members works in the investment industry and has helped many startups successfully obtain funding. We also talked to many of our friends who were in the process of starting their own businesses, and eventually we realized that to get investors and successfully obtain funding, we needed to have a business plan with profit potential. The most important things in a business plan are:
- What is the one thing we want to do? How large is the market for it?
- What capabilities do we have to make sure we can do what we want to do? Hence, we started by conducting market research on the potential market for synthetic biology. Details can be seen on our Entrepreneurship page.
After thorough industry research, we noticed that cosmetic and food are able to achieve a CAGR growth of around 60% due to the consumer industry's own pursuit of low cost and ESG. Taking into account market acceptance, industrial policies, and the technical capabilities we can achievethe, we believe cosmetic and food industries will be the most suitable industries for us to cut into at this time.
Our cooperation with STEE HILL
Founded in May 2019, STEE HILL is a skincare brand based on high-end synthetic biotechnology with humanized collagen as its core ingredient and is the only up-and-coming company currently positioning synthetic biology technology in skin care in China. In 2021, STEE HILL opened its first Tmall flagship store, debuting its full line of recombinant collagen skincare products. In just five months, STEE HILL has become one of the fastest growing brands in this segment, with the main product "C3 Baby Collagen" anti-aging series, which currently has six categories of serum, water, milk, cream, and cleanser, with a total of 7 SKU's. Its founder, Laura lee, was a beauty company's CEO with rich experience in research, production, marketing, and channel management.
As an emerging force in the synthetic biology beauty industry, we had an in-depth conversation with Laura Lee. We and STEE HILL were fascinated by each other's stories and decided to enter into a strategic partnership to jointly explore Clean Beauty driven by synthetic biology techniques in the bio-economy era.
In our strategic partnership with STEE HILL, we have jointly recognized the importance of synthetic biology technology to the Chinese beauty industry.
- First, synthetic biology technology is the only possibility for Chinese beauty functional ingredients and packaging materials to overtake the competition.
- Second, synthetic biology technology is the only technology that can truly realize the four principles of Clean Beauty.
- Third, synthetic biology is the only discipline that can perfectly combine Clean Beauty and efficacy.
- Fourth, synthetic biology is the only choice to realize the sustainable development of beauty industry.
We also talked about our own product. According to Laura, the efficacy of alpha-Bisabolol is proven in the market, and we will supply the alpha-Bisabolol we produce to STEE HILL as a priority and add it to STEE HILL cosmetic products as a compound ingredient after the efficacy is proven.
Laura noted that in China, only 20% of the active ingredients in cosmetic ingredients can be supplied by local Chinese suppliers, and foreign suppliers monopolize important functional and basic ingredients. However, products need to rely more on active and functional ingredients for good efficacy performance. She believes there is no Chinese way to make big high-end cosmetic brands because big international brands and suppliers master international raw materials. Because of the current situation of supply chain of local cosmetic ingredients in China, big international brands have a better chance than local Chinese brands to get these new ingredients first and thus gain a competitive advantage in the market. This dilemma was sharply exacerbated in 2019 after the outbreak of COVID-19 when local Chinese cosmetic companies were generally faced with a cut-off in raw material supply due to the embargo, and international political tensions brought about by COVID-19. The synthetic project will bring new life to China's cosmetics industry in the face of a global pandemic of COVID-19 and a dangerous geopolitical confrontation.
L'Oreal Interview
L'Oreal is one of the world's leading beauty and personal care brands, with 35 brands and a presence in 150 countries, bringing the latest technological advances in beauty and personal care products.
We had an in-depth conversation with Rebecca Xu, Head of Open Innovation at L'Oreal's China R&D and Innovation Center, and Sarah Sun, Head of Ingredients.
Through these two interviews, we gained a deeper understanding of the development needs of cosmetic companies and the actual situation of our first product, alpha-Bisabolol, in the cosmetic industry chain. This made us aware of the important role that synthetic biology technology can play in the future supply chain of cosmetic ingredients, our confidence was strengthen and we believe that using synthetic biology to produce active ingredients is the best option to cut into the cosmetic industry today.
We also realized that because of the wide variety of active additives and the need for rapid iterations as market demand changes, as well as the large number of additives that are still not produced in an environmentally friendly way, we need to have rapid iterations to accelerate synthetic biology to replace traditional unsustainable production methods while meeting rapidly changing market demands.
Consequently, we ultimately identified our need to create a R&D platform that would allow for rapid synthetic biology product development and used alpha-Bisabolol as our proof-of-concept product.
"L'Oreal is committed to transforming its business model to respect the planet's boundaries. In the context of carbon neutrality, consumers' expectations of the beauty industry are moving towards "sustainable beauty".
Based on the Earth Boundary Theory, the company focuses on four areas in setting sustainability goals: Climate Protection, Water Management, Biodiversity, and Recycling of Resources. In response to the strategic goal of "L'Oreal for Tomorrow," L'Oreal's research and development department has developed a green science concept for its ingredients and formulations. On the one hand, they will evaluate the environmental footprint of existing technologies to ensure that they respect the planet's boundaries; on the other hand, they will actively promote technological upgrades and transformations to face the growing environmental and social challenges.
Alpha-Bisabolol is available in synthetic and natural sources. Synthetic alpha-Bisabolol contains only 46% of the active levorotatory isomers. Natural alpha-Bisabolol is generally extracted from the Brazilian Candia tree. Most manufacturers on the market today, including L'Oreal, extract alpha-Bisabolol from the essential oil of the Brazilian Candeia Tree (Eremanthus erythropappus).
In recent years, the Amazon rainforest, known as the "lungs of the earth," has become increasingly difficult to "breathe," and deforestation is a key cause of forest fires in the Amazon. Deforestation is a key cause of forest fires in the Amazon. The area damaged has reached its highest level in the past 15 years. In contrast, Candeia Tree's alpha-Bisabolol production is very low, with only 7 kg of alpha-Bisabolol extracted from 1 ton of bark, with a 10-year planting period per tree and official harvesting restrictions, Candeia Tree is highly non-renewable.
The addition of alpha-Bisabolol to L'Oreal's star products, the Hair Serum and the Cleansing Deep Cleansing Oil, is not in line with the "L'Oreal for Tomorrow - 2030 Sustainable Development " goal. Two L'Oreal leaders praised ONCE's initiative to use a synthetic biology platform to replace traditional destructive plant extracts. They believe this initiative is very much in line with L'Oreal's values. They expressed great interest in inviting us to become one of L'Oreal's raw material suppliers once we achieve mass production of alpha-Bisabolol, which could help L'Oreal further implement reaching sustainable beauty.
Our startup company: ONCE
Based on all these trails of our HP and market research, we decided to start a company. ONCE is a company focused on synthetic biology beauty and food upstream, committed to becoming a leader in synthetic biology application technology. The company's core technology is synthetic biology application product manufacturing technology. As a research-oriented, customer-centric enterprise, the company provides customized raw material solutions for downstream enterprises such as beauty and food. The company pioneered the use of Vibrio natriegens as major chassis organism and derived several pipelines on this basis.
We had communicated with Sequoia China、Heli and many other Ventures shows Great interest in ONCE, and we had communication with local government (ZHANGJIAGANG, JIANGSU, CHINA)
For more details on our startup and business plan, see Entrepreneurship.
How to apply our chassis in production?
To meet the need for rapid development, we have selected several unique strains that grow rapidly as our chassis. Chief among them is, the fastest growing microorganism known to date.
This species has the advantages of extremely fast growth and potentially high yields, however its demand for salt ion concentrations in the environment poses more stringent production conditions. We need to find the most suitable production environment to meet the needs and our quest for sustainability.
How to overcome the corrosion problem caused by high salt environment?
In conventional industrial fermentation, fermenters are made of materials that do not easily withstand the corrosion caused by higher salinity and require intense maintenance or even frequent replacement. Therefore, we need to find a solution to the corrosion problem of fermenters.
We believe that this problem can be answered by communicating with the people who work most with salt.
A visit to the China Sea Salt Museum: A storage solution for highly concentrated sodium chloride
The history of humanity's interest in the sea can be traced back to an even longer time before the invention of "boiling the sea for salt." In the face of the surging sea and the vast expanse of the mud flats, the ancestors converged on the flat, open mud flats and used the mud flats and grass swings to create a chapter in the history of sea salt extraction. With the socio-economic development, manual salt production has receded from the historical stage, the modern salt production process and procedures have become much more efficient, and salt production has increased greatly. We imagine that if V. natriegens steel tank fermentation faces a high concentration of chloride ions corrosion, the whole process of industrial salt production, storage, and transportation will face more serious corrosion. A systematic understanding of salt's industrial production may help us solve this industry problem once and for all.
We visited the China Sea Salt Museum to see the historical changes in how salt is produced and to ask the museum staff our questions. The museum staff showed us the current FRP brine storage tanks used in industrial production.He highly recommended that we consider using Fiber reinforced plastics (FRP) for the fermentation production of V. natriegens. FRP is widely used in brine storage tanks and brine pipeline transportation in the sea salt industry. FRP can withstand up to 30% salinity. It has excellent oxidation, acid, and alkali resistance and is resistant to aging. It is also cost-effective, environmentally friendly, and potential for industrial mass production applications.
Hence, we come to a solution of corrosion.
How to obtain high concentrations of salt water for fermentation in a sustainable way?
Carbon neutrality is one of humanity's most important common issues. ONCE is also thinking about applying its power to help the cause of carbon neutrality for all humankind.
During the Nature Matters conference (A summit about accelerating the industrialization of synthetic biology, see details by the end of this page), we had an in-depth discussion with the government of Yancheng City about the development of synthetic biology in the era of carbon neutrality.
The Yancheng city government officials discussed some environmental dilemmas they are facing. One of them was, Typical microbial fermentation often faces the problem of easy contamination and thus requires complicated sterilization and high energy input.
In addition, it also consumes a large amount of freshwater for preparing the culture medium.
The Yancheng government personnel asked us, "Can the strains you use be cultured directly using unsterilized seawater rather than using our freshwater resources derived from desalination, plus sodium chloride extracted from the seawater?"
This suggestion greatly inspired us. Now we are seeking to use non-sterilized fermentation of V. natriegens with seawater. To systematically verify the project's feasibility, we sought the community's help to collect seawater from China iGEMer for non-sterilized fermentation. For results, see Results or POC.
In this section, we detailed our activities with Yancheng government. To make it brief, we condensed the most important contents. For complete record, see following details.
During the Nature Matters conference, the Yancheng city government officials discussed two environmental dilemmas they are facing.
- They revealed to us a counterintuitive conclusion: In the current biosynthetic manufacturing scenario, due to factors such as production efficiency and maturity of the manufacturing process, biosynthetic products do not perform as well as their chemical counterparts in terms of carbon neutrality throughout their life cycle, leaving a larger carbon footprint in the entire value chain. The traditional petrol-based industry has contributed most of the chemicals in our daily lives. Microbial fermentation producing chemicals from a renewable resource is environmentally friendly and sustainable to replace the petrol-based industry. However, typical microbial fermentation often faces the problem of easy contamination and thus requires complicated sterilization and high energy input.
- In addition, synthetic biology is produced at a much lower scale at this stage than in the traditional chemical industry. Small-scale biosynthesis requires higher energy consumption to produce a unit of product than chemical synthesis; therefore, the carbon footprint impact from energy consumption is very high.
Yancheng City is one of the first new energy demonstration cities in China. The scale of offshore wind power in Yancheng is 3.52 million kilowatts, accounting for 40% of China and 10% of the world. Yancheng is known as the "First City of Offshore Wind Power." To eliminate the original sin of carbon emissions caused by the limited production scale, some of the leading Chinese synthetic biology companies have chosen to use the "offshore wind power" technology. Some of China's leading synthetic biology companies have chosen to use wind power as a clean energy source to reduce carbon emissions from industrial production. But in reality, if we convert wind energy to coal energy, synthetic biology companies can do no more than traditional companies in terms of carbon neutrality.
In addition, it also consumes a large amount of freshwater for preparing the culture medium. The desalination industry in Yancheng is relatively developed, but traditional desalination is a highly energy-consuming industry, with more than 150 countries and regions worldwide building thermal power plants to provide the electricity needed for desalination. However, traditional desalination is a highly energy-consuming industry, and more than 150 countries and regions worldwide have built thermal power stations to provide the electricity needed for desalination.
The Yancheng government personnel asked us, "Can the strains you use be cultured directly using unsterilized seawater rather than using our freshwater resources derived from desalination, plus sodium chloride extracted from the seawater?"
At the same time, they also wanted us to try to culture V. natriegens with marine aquaculture wastewater, which contains mainly organic matter, ammonia nitrogen, nitrite, nitrate, and phosphorus. It is mainly characterized by the large volume of water, few types of pollutants, and small variations in content. The pollutants are mainly organic matter, nitrogen, phosphorus, and other nutrient salts, and we speculate that these characteristics will probably favor the rapid growth of V. natriegens. Identifying a suitable microbial strain, excluding expensive sterilization and freshwater consumption, is highly desirable for developing energy-efficient and sustainable biotechnology.
To address the above problems, Vibrio natriegens, a good microbial chassis with low nutritional requirements, high salt tolerance, and rapid growth rate, can be selected as the host for chemical production. This bacterium is non-pathogenic and belongs to biosafety level 1.
We are seeking to use non-sterilized fermentation of V. natriegens with seawater. To systematically verify the project's feasibility, we sought the community's help to collect seawater from China iGEMer for non-sterilized fermentation. For results, see Results or POC.
This brings us to the end of our introduction to our main human practices. But we have done a lot of work beyond that, and here is a brief record of what we have done.
Nature Matters Meeting
Synthetic biology, based on making, is considered an advanced manufacturing technology that offers historical opportunities. In recent years, synthetic biology has shown a broad market prospect with high growth on the application side. In 2021, the global synthetic biology field received nearly $18 billion in investment, a record high.
However, the industrialization of synthetic biology still faces difficulties, such as many input elements, long innovation chain, large R&D investment, and a long maturation cycle. Suppose there is a platform that can integrate the innovation resources of pioneer companies and empower synthetic biology start-ups to gather all the elements of industrialization, such as technology, talent, capital, and market demand, in a one-stop manner. In that case, it will significantly accelerate the speed of industrialization from R&D to market and improve the success rate of start-ups crossing the valley of death. In this way, the Nature Matters Bioeconomy Industry Acceleration Platform was born.
Nature Matters Bioeconomy Industry Acceleration Platform consists of Bluepha, Country Garden venture capital, Grass Green Group, FREES Fund, Hillhouse Capital, Lightspeed China, Huanghai Financial Holding, Blue Light Intelligent Co, L'ORÉAL China, TRINITY INNOVATION FUND, Green Pine Capital, Meishen Biotechnology Co, Tecan China, Xinsu Medical Technology Co. Xinsu Medical Technology Co., Genesis Capital, and Zhongping Capital. The platform aims to integrate resources from all parties, build a bridge between upstream and downstream industry partners, investment institutions, and high-quality start-up teams, help more biotechnologies to achieve commercialization, unblock the industry chain and promote the healthy development of the industrial ecology.
On July 22, 2022, the first "Nature Matters" Bioeconomy Summit Forum was held in Yancheng, Jiangsu Province, organized by Bluepha, Yancheng City Government, and Huanghai Financial Holdings. The forum gathered several academicians and professors in the biotechnology field, invited key leaders from the local government, and gathered leading figures from the industry and investment community to share and discuss the latest achievements and industrial trends in the field of bioeconomy
As the team is composed of iGEM alums in China. Our goal is to bring out an iGEM project from idea to industrialization and finally change the world. BNSC_China was invited to attend this meeting. Through this meeting, we further reviewed and improved our project.
During the meeting, we extensively communicated with government agencies, academia, industry, synthetic biology start-ups, and suppliers and reached cooperation.
Experimenting with a novel microchlorinated V. natriegens culture
V. natriegens requires sodium ions (Na+) for cell proliferation. The genome features genes for at least one Na+-extruding oxaloacetate decarboxylase, Na+-transporting NADH: ubiquinone oxidoreductase, and Na+-translocating ferredoxin: NAD+ oxidoreductase.
The sodium ion is necessary for the growth of Vibrio albicans. We designed a defined medium containing only traces of this halogen but sufficient sodium ions to maintain the high growth rate of V. natriegens. This cultivation method will greatly reduce the problem of chloride corrosion. Unfortunately, the laboratory or industrial cost of this kind of medium is higher than those of the medium directly added with sodium chloride. We must evaluate this new medium further and find a more economical and feasible industrial fermentation way.
The wisdom of the countryside: the inspiration of the biogas digester
Young scientists often work in academic institutions and laboratories, as does ONCE. Since ancient times, China has been known as a largely agricultural country, with 94.7% of the country's land area in rural areas, but ONCE members live and work in large cities, so while we design and complete projects based on real-world needs, we also hope to be inspired by the countryside, where we are rarely found.
During a field trip to Dongzeng Village in Binhai County, Yancheng City, we were surprised to find that Fiber reinforced plastics are already widely used for microbial fermentation in the Chinese countryside. Fiber-reinforced plastics are already being used on a large scale in constructing methane-generating pits. We were fortunate enough to witness the installation of an FRP digester in the village of Dongzeng. Through the interview with the installation engineer, we learned that Fiber reinforced plastics are widely used in the fermentation culture of microorganisms of biogas fermentation, and the whole process of biogas generation is as follows. 1. Hydrolysis stage: The fermentative bacteria use the extracellular enzymes secreted to decompose the organic matter in vitro enzymatically. 2. Acid production stage: The fermentative bacteria decompose the small molecule compounds produced in the hydrolysis stage into acetic acid, propionic acid, and butyric acid. Then hydrogen-producing acetic acid-producing bacteria convert the propionic acid and butyric acid produced by fermentative bacteria into acetic acid, hydrogen, and carbon dioxide.3, methanogenic stage: methanogenic bacteria convert hydrogen and carbon dioxide into methane, and the latter decarboxylates acetic acid to produce methane.
At the same time, we witnessed the installation of FRP microorganisms for biogas fermentation. We saw for ourselves the good overall performance of FRP fermenters, the ease of transportation and installation, the adaptability of installation, the ease of management, and the quickness of operation and construction. We were convinced to use FRP as the material for V. natriegens. industrial fermenter material. Of course, during the follow-up communication with the industry, we also learned that FRP fermenters might have defects such as the inability to install high-powered stirring devices, weaker processing performance than stainless steel, easy-to-shed impurities, etc. In the follow-up small trial and pilot scale stage, we decided to further study and implement the use of Fiber-reinforced plastics for V. natriegens according to its biological characteristics. The idea of using Fiber reinforced plastics material for V. natriegens production fermentation was further investigated in the subsequent small-scale and pilot scale-up stage.
Vnat 2022 conference
In March, we attended Vnat 2022 conference.
In this session, we learned the following information: first, we learned about the salt concentration suitable for Vnat growth. The salinity of the culture conditions commonly used in the literature does inhibit the growth of weedy bacteria, while the salt concentration in seawater is similar, and this knowledge paved the way for our subsequent attempts at non-sterilized fermentation with seawater.
Second, we learned in our meeting that IPTG-inducible promoters have a strong leaky expression profile in Vnat and that a lower expression of the enzyme is preferable for metabolic engineering in sodium-demanding Vibrio. When we designed the MVA plasmid, we found that leaky expression of IPTG-inducible promoters were used in E. coli to drive expression of the MVA pathway, suggesting that we need to redesign the promoters when transferring the plasmids into Vnat, which also drove us to test the background expression of each promoter in Vnat in the Marionette collection.
Better yet, we learned that the natural transformation method commonly used for Vnat gene editing has limitations such as instability and insertion of up to 2000 bp, which inspired us to think about developing more efficient, broad-spectrum, and large fragment-tolerant gene editing kits
Fermentation with seawater
Composition of seawater
Seawater is a complex solution in which the components with content greater than 1 mg/kg are the main components of seawater, in addition to the hydrogen and oxygen that make up the water molecules and non-conservative dissolved silicic acid, a total of 11 species. The six components with the highest content are, in descending order, chlorine, sodium, sulfate, magnesium, calcium, and potassium, accounting for 99% of the total salt content of seawater.
Dissolved oxygen is an indispensable substance in marine life activities, mainly from the atmosphere and phytoplankton photosynthesis. The amount of dissolved oxygen in water is related to atmospheric pressure, water temperature, and salinity.
Here we focus mainly on the surface layer (because the place to take water can only be surface water). Wind, waves, and vertical convection stir the surface layer, and oxygen exchange between surface water and the atmosphere tends to be balanced more quickly. The dissolved oxygen in the surface water is basically at saturation, a condition saturated with oxygen, and will probably be favorable for V. natriegens cultures with very high growth rates.
The salinity of seawater is a scale of the salinity in seawater and is one of seawater's most important physicochemical properties. The absolute salinity of seawater is the ratio of all dissolved solids in seawater to the weight of seawater, usually expressed in grams of salt per kilogram of seawater. The average salinity of seawater is about 35.
Bluepha Factory Tour
Bluepha has developed the industrial production technology of biodegradable material PHA - Bluepha™️, which solved the problems of high production cost, low yield, and unstable performance of PHA for many years. Bluepha has systematically reduced the production cost of PHA.
In January 2022, Bluepha started the construction of a 25,000 tons per year Bluepha™ mega plant in Binhai, Yancheng City, Jiangsu Province, and has already completed the main structure's roofing. The production cost of Lansu™️ will continue to be reduced to the same level as PLA at the 10,000-ton scale. It is estimated that each ton of Bluepha™ product can bring about 2 tons of bio-carbon sequestration, helping Bluepha build a synthetic biology "zero carbon industry chain" model.
As a young force in synthetic biology in China, we were honored to be invited to visit Bluepha's super factory to experience the industrialization process of China's leading synthetic biology company. During the field trip, we interviewed Mr. Kang Zhixin, Vice President of Engineering of Bluepha, and Mr. Wang Mingjiang, General Manager of the plant. The two experienced engineers greatly appreciated our project and reminded us of two aspects. They suggested we replace the one-time feeding fermentation with batch replenishment fermentation in the laboratory to obtain the highest alpha-Bisabolol content. In addition, they reminded us to pay special attention to the physicochemical parameters, such as the water hardness of the medium, because, in their experience, certain cosmetic ingredients can undergo emulsification in inappropriate water, which can affect the extraction and processing of the ingredients.
Thanks to their caution, we achieved a record yield of 116 mg/L of alpha-Bisabolol using V. natriegens, which is about ten times higher than the highest yield of alpha-Bisabolol biosynthesis reported in the previous history.
Distributors Interview
Distributors tell us that traditional bisabolol production requires a lot of tree felling, and the chemical synthesis method has a large purity problem. Therefore, if it is necessary to sell in the country, quality, scale-up production and timely delivery will become the main issues.
Harvard Entrepreneurship Competition
At the Harvard Entrepreneurship Competition，“H-InnoPitch” Start-up Pitch Competition, global venture capital institutions highly recognize the development model of synthetic biology and believe that there should be more commercialization elements for traditional selection.
Fast-moving consumer goods are products that sell quickly at relatively low cost. These goods are also called consumer packaged goods.
FMCGs have a short shelf life because of high consumer demand (e.g., soft drinks and confections) or because they are perishable (e.g., meat, dairy products, and baked goods). These goods are purchased frequently, are consumed rapidly, are priced low, and are sold in large quantities. They also have a high turnover when they're on the shelf at the store.
For ONCE, we need to bring out our own MCGs productss and the SKU design could be bold.
MiraclePlus
Dr. LU QI Speaking
Dr.LUQI helps us to reconsider the first product ONCEBeauty Skincare for Men.
With the improvement of China's male skin care awareness, male skin care product consumption demand continues to increase, while men pay more attention to product quality, men's high-end skin care consumption will increase rapidly, men's skin care market size will maintain rapid growth, it is expected that the market size of China's male skin care industry in 2022 is 11.3 billion yuan, with the end of the epidemic, the market demand for male skin care products will pick up, it is expected that by 2027, the market size of China's male skin care industry is expected to reach 24 billion yuan, The average compound growth rate from 2022 to 2027 is 16.26%.
According to the data of the brand network, the TOP5 men's skin care brands in China have long been covered by foreign brands. L'Oréal Group also has L'Oréal Men's, Beyond-Spring Men's, Keyan's Men and other brands. Manszoraydon in the United States is also continuing to develop, and these big names are constantly conducting market education and brand promotion. The domestic brand is only Gaofu under Shanghai Jahwa United, ranking fifth.
Among all male cosmetics consumers, young consumers aged 18-25 account for 59.50%, while the number of male consumers aged 26-30 accounts for 21.30%.
Brainstorming with Alila
Products
Spa Alila believes in all things natural, whether it be the spa ingredients that we source locally, or international brands that complement our treatment range. Spa Alila products are made from creative blends of ingredients, such as indigenous plants, fruits, herbs and spices, that are fragrant and so fresh they are almost edible - cucumber and aloe vera to soothe, lemongrass and ginger to refresh, coffee and coconut to tone and condition.
Based on this, we decided to promote our first SKU as ocean base. considering that we can also use seawater to produce our main ingredients. Combinaing with our synsetic biology concept, we named it ONCE LABORATORY.
Promoting on social media and Diving activites
We started by contacting some of our diving buddies in Bali to ask them about their views on the ocean, skincare and recycling. And with them, experience underwater diving near Penida Island to cultivate recyclable and technological skincare concepts.
INSTAGRAM
A ONCE company
Based on all the trails before, we decided to start a company. ONCE_CHINA is a company focused on synthetic biology beauty and food upstream, committed to becoming a leader in synthetic biology application technology. The company's core technology is synthetic biology application product manufacturing technology. As a research-oriented, customer-centric enterprise, the company provides customized raw material solutions for downstream enterprises such as beauty and food. The company pioneered the use of Vibrio sodiums as a chassis organism and derived several pipelines on this basis.
We had communicated with Sequoia China、Heli and many other Ventures shows Great interest in ONCE, and we had communication with local government (ZHANGJIAGANG, JIANGSU, CHINA)
Digital transformation on supply chain
Bill is a senior consultant at Pactera, who foucused on supply chain Digtalization. With the help of Bill, we redesigned the supply chain with all stakeholders in mind.
In-depth understanding of supply chain needs, innovative BI design, to achieve high OTD, high inventory turnover
Research on Sugar substitute
With the intensification of obesity, dental caries, sugar taxes and other issues, the global demand for sugar substitutes in the beverage and food sector is increasing. The market for a higher sweet price ratio, safer natural flavor sugar substitute demand has risen, single product high sweetness natural sugar substitute market (steviol glycosides, luo han guo glycosides) scale exceeded one billion US dollars, CAGR maintained a rapid growth trend of more than 10%.
However, the single sugar substitute itself is not good in flavor, the market prefers compound sugar substitute, how to adjust the compound ratio and the customized service needs of downstream enterprises have become the focus of attention.
The customized service that requires a high technical threshold is precisely the advantage that distinguishes it from planting and extracting enterprises. We believe that a custom compounded natural sugar substitute large-scale production platform based on synthetic biology will lead the future.
In the selection of major categories, the unit price of more than 3000 yuan / kg of luo han guo glycosides has great consumption potential, and in the 2022 China top ten flavors released by Kerry China, we believe that the luo han guo glycosides with the flavor of "finishing herbs" will have great achievements. In the compound sugar substitute, coconut flower sugar, lucuma fructose, kiwifruit sweet protein, agave sugar, steviol glycosides are all good choices.
Industry Research on Sugar Substitute