In California, the Advanced Biofuels and Bioproducts Process Development Unit (ABPDU) at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (Berkeley Lab) has helped over 90 companies scale up innovative biotechnologies, advancing them from the lab to commercial relevance. Now, the ABPDU will be enhancing its efforts to rapidly bring biomanufacturing processes to scale, thanks to a $1.5 million gift to the Berkeley Lab Foundation through the support of philanthropists Eric and Wendy Schmidt.
This comes after the National Security Commission on Emerging Biotechnology recommended increasing support for U.S. Department of Energy-funded biomanufacturing scale-up facilities, as outlined in the commission’s recent “Charting the Future of Biotechnology” report.
Equipped with state-of-the-art equipment and a team of biomanufacturing experts, the ABPDU is already playing a key role in advancing U.S. leadership in biotechnology.
Several ABPDU research projects focus on the “science of scale-up” — fundamental research that can help achieve a shift in how we manufacture chemicals and fuels, making domestic manufacturing and supply chains more feasible. Recently, ABPDU researchers developed a new quantum sensing technique for potential use in self-driving bioreactors, which could significantly expedite biomanufacturing research.
Tags: ABPDU, Berkeley Lab Foundation, California
Category: Research
