US synbio firm LanzaTech has partnered with the Technical University of Denmark’s Bright hub to set up a biofoundry that can recycle waste CO2 emissions into biofuels, sustainable materials, and more.
LanzaTech, a US startup leveraging fermentation to convert gases into high-value products, has entered a two-year partnership with the Technical University of Denmark (DTU) to establish a new AI-powered hub for its process.
The startup is working with the Novo Nordisk Foundation Biotechnology Research Institute for the Green Transition (Bright) at DTU to design and install a next-generation C1 biofoundry that will convert industrial emissions into bio-based products.
The biofoundry will specialise in microbes that utilise C1 gases – namely methane, carbon monoxide, and carbon dioxide – to produce sustainable fuels, chemicals, and materials.
“DTU has a history of driving innovation from the lab to commercial deployment. Our new partnership with LanzaTech emphasises our commitment to accelerate bio-solutions innovation for the benefit of Denmark, Europe and beyond,” said DTU provost Christine Nellemann.
Partnership will close the tech gap for bio-based products
LanzaTech, which went public via a SPAC merger in 2022, recycles waste carbon to produce ethanol for apparel, packaging, surfactants, sustainable aviation fuels, animal feed, and even proteins for human consumption.
The company has spent 15 years developing synbio capabilities for carbon-fixing, gas-fermenting organisms, including the first dedicated biofoundry for these microbes. Its biofoundry solution is purpose-built for non-model organisms with highly customised anaerobic and gas-handling capabilities, as well as advanced workflows.
Bright, meanwhile, was founded earlier this year as part of a research collaboration between DTU and the Novo Nordisk Foundation to accelerate the green transition through biosolutions. It’s focused on three key areas: sustainable materials, microorganisms for climate-neutral agriculture, and microbial foods.
As part of the partnership, a team at LanzaTech will develop tailored methods and workflows for Bright’s research missions, provide a non-exclusive license to relevant IP for tools and biofoundry workflows, and establish the C1 biofoundry at DTU.
According to LanzaTech, recent advances in its technology have created new opportunities to develop production strains more efficiently, but access to these capabilities is limited, slowing global technology development. Setting up a biofoundry at Bright would close this gap and create a shared platform for researchers, partners and innovation activities across Europe.
It will allow the US startup to extend its synbio expertise by leveraging Bright’s infrastructure, talent, and regional reach. The latter, in turn, will obtain the tools needed to accelerate innovation in the circular bioeconomy and position Denmark and Europe as important players in the carbon-to-value biotech field.
“By creating a dedicated team that consolidates our biotechnology know-how, we can focus the broader team on our commitment to delivering commercial sustainable aviation fuel and biorefining projects,” said LanzaTech CEO Jennifer Holmgren.
Gas fermentation is heating up
The partnership, which runs until April 2028, will enable faster strain development, with automation and parallelisation enabling thousands of microbial designs to be generated and tested at once. Further, it will reduce innovation risk, as high-throughput workflows enable the testing of many more variants, helping teams “fail faster and optimise sooner”.
The integration of AI-driven design tools will enable the two entities to feed large-scale strain-screening data into models that guide the next design cycle. And the biofoundry will also enable safe, high-precision research with non-model, often anaerobic microbes, and flammable or toxic gases.
“We are delighted to partner with Bright, whose vision, expertise, and commitment to transformative research make them the ideal partner for LanzaTech. This marks a significant milestone in our transformation,” said Holmgren.
The collaboration comes as gas fermentation heats up globally. Bright is working with Novonesis to engineer microbes that convert waste carbon dioxide into proteins at an industrial scale, as part of the Acetate Consortium launched by the Gates Foundation and the Novo Nordisk Foundation.
In the US, the Department of Defense awarded a $9M grant to California’s Biosphere to build portable, “field-deployable” bioreactors to produce gas-fermented proteins for the US Army in remote and logistically constrained environments.
In the same vein, LanzaTech has been working with the US Navy Research Lab on a project co-funded by the Department of Defense to explore protein production on its ships and meet the nutritional needs of soldiers and sailors across the armed forces.
Finland’s Solar Foods has already commercialised its Solein protein in Singapore, and will enter the US market this year, and Denmark’s Unibio is working with the Saudi Industrial Investment Group to build the world’s largest gas protein factory. Air Protein, LanzaTech, Jooules, and Aerbio are all innovating with this technology too.
