Researchers from the Chair of Nutrition and Immunology, ZIEL - Institute for Food and Health, and the Data Science in Systems Biology group at the Technical University of Munich (Germany) investigated how diet influences the development of the infant gut microbiome during the first year of life. While age was found to be the primary driver of microbiota assembly, formula composition influenced metabolite profiles and the development of bacterial circadian rhythms. Using the INFORS HT Multifors 2 bioreactor as an ex vivo gut chemostat model, the team confirmed that rhythmic behavior in dominant gut bacteria can be maintained under controlled laboratory conditions, providing new insights into the relationship between nutrition, microbiome development, and circadian biology.

Researchers have sequenced and characterized a novel thermophilic cyanobacterium isolated from a hot spring in Namibia, revealing how it adapts to extreme heat through temperature responsive protein expression. Cultivated using the INFORS HT Labfors bench-top bioreactor, the strain proposed to represent a new genus within the Thermosynechococcaceae family displayed distinct genomic and proteomic features linked to thermotolerance. These findings expand our understanding of extremophile adaptation and highlight promising targets for future bioengineering and high temperature biotechnological applications.

Moving a mammalian cell culture process from shake flask to bioreactor is more than a scale-up exercise. Each transition introduces new challenges in oxygen transfer, pH control, CO₂ management, mixing, and data reproducibility. This practical guide explores the key stages of cell culture process development, explains why process transfer often fails, and shows how integrated bioreactor control and data management help create scalable, reproducible processes from screening through scale-up.

The Industrial Biotechnology Innovation Centre (IBioIC) in Scotland supports companies and researchers to address key challenges in biotechnology, from finding new uses for waste to developing sustainable feedstocks. By supporting researchers, startups, and SMEs, IBioIC helps move ideas out of the lab and into real-world applications that contribute to the circular bioeconomy.