Secondary metabolites produced from fermentation of actinomycetes are one of the most important sources of pharmaceuticals. Microbia, Inc. announced yesterday that its Precision Engineering business unit has entered into a research collaboration with A*STAR's Bioprocessing Technology Institute (BTI) in Singapore to improve the efficiency of secondary metabolite production from actinomycete bacteria. This will allow BTI scientists to use Microbia's profiling and informatic methods to speed up production of actinomycete metabolites for use in cancer therapeutics.

"By combining Microbia's powerful platform for engineering industrial microbes with our strong technology base in, and deep knowledge of, genomics and process development, we aim to create a new paradigm for more efficient and cost-effective production of pharmaceutical compounds from actinomycetes," said Miranda Yap, Executive Director of BTI.

Download the press release here.