Altar – GinkGo Bioworks Inc.

#Bioproduction / Pharmaceutical Services #Industrial Biotech #Industrial biotechnologies; Green Tech #Services and R&D Products

• Directed evolution
• Continuous culture
• ALE – Adaptive laboratory evolution
• Strain development
• Natural selection
• Chemostat

BACKGROUND

Created in 2017, Alter is a biotech company specialized in automated microbial fluidics. The company runs a microorganism adaptive laboratory evolution platform at Genopole for research or propriety projects aimed at developing microorganisms of interest in industry.
Following Ginkgo Bioworks’s acquisition fo the company in October 2022, the Altar team was integrated as a new ALE department within Ginkgo’s Foundry.

DESCRIPTION OF THE PRODUCTS / SERVICES / TECHNOLOGY

Altar conceives and operates fluidic automated systems for the continuous culture of microbial suspensions. The company’s technology is used mainly in the setting of adaptive evolution experiments aimed at improving microorganism performance via natural selection. It enables the continuous culture of microbial suspensions under algorithm-controlled conditions for as long as is needed. Altar makes its technology and know-how available through collaborative projects or research services.

ACCOMPLISHMENTS / COLLABORATIONS / HIGHLIGHTS

Altar has benefited from an independent revenue stream since its creation thanks to the sale of research services to the food, chemistry, biofuels and health industries. The company also receives European subventions as a part of the H2020 eForFuel (www.eforfuel.eu) and SinFonia  projects in partnership with public and private actors. Altar was a laureate of the Marche 2020 Green Deal call for proposals made within the European Commission’s EIC Accelerator program. In October 2020, Ginkgo Bioworks acquired Altar to bring ALE capacities to its technological platform, the Foundry.

COLLABORATIONS SOUGHT

To empower its growth, Ginkgo Bioworks continuously seeks academic and industrial partners.

• Further Information

  Number of employees: 16 employees and currently hiring

  STRENGTHS
  Team, technological leadership, commercial traction, growth, vision & agility, affiliate of the world leader in synthetic biology Ginkgo Bioworks.

  INNOVATION ASSETS
  A visionary in ALE approaches.