Traditional bioprocessing requires bioreactors made of stainless steel and complicated sterilization procedure as well as well-trained engineers that are able to conduct bioprocessing under sterilized conditions. Next generation industrial biotechnology allows bioprocessing to be conducted under unsterilized conditions using ceramic, cement or plastic bioreactors in a continuous way, it is an energy, water and substrate saving simplified technology. It also requires less capital investment and reduces demand on highly trained engineers, which means, ordinary citizens can conduct bioprocessing in their backyard. The foundation for the simplified next generation industrial biotechnology is microorganisms that resist contaminations by other microbes. Halomonas spp. are some of these anti-contamination microbes that able to grow under high osmotic pressure and high pH. The developments of molecular manipulation tools for Halomonas spp. allow the creations of a library of various engineered Halomonas spp. that are able to produce chemicals, materials and biofuels as well as various enzymes and proteins under open conditions in a continuous way in your backyard. Depending on your demand for certain products, you can order the specific strains from a company to produce the products using your facilities in your own company or in your own backyard.
One of the products that can be produced by the next generation industrial biotechnology is biomaterials, especially polyhydroxyalkanoates (PHA) including the commonly known corn based bioplastic polylactide (PLA) or poly(lactideco-glycolide) (PLGA), which form a very diverse biomaterial family called PHAome. A library of engineered Halomonas spp. has been constructed to produce various PHA polymers in the PHAome. One can obtain homopolymers, random- or block copolymers as well as functional polymers from the specially engineered Halomonas spp. to meet the demands. The PHAome contains not just biodegradable, biocompatible and thermally processible biomaterials, but also biomaterials that can be modified to become smart materials responsible to changes in temperature, pH, humidity and osmotic pressure.
