Microorganisms are working animals in industrial biotechnology. Valuable basic building blocks for food and medications can be produced with their help. That’s why there the search for productive strains is ongoing. These strains are hard to detect, however. The team collaborating with Georg Schaumann and Stephan Binder are amongst the winners of the 6th GO-Bio round. They have been working on special sensor technology at the Forschungszentrum Jülich for three years - with great success: With the foundation of SenseUp GmbH, the team began its commercialisation phase.

3.5 million Euros investor capital and support funds

During the first funding phase, Schaumann and Binder were already able to develop the technology to market maturity. Now they want to transfer the technology from the laboratory to the industry as entrepreneurs with an 8-person team. For ‘scale-up’ they receive investor capital and incentives of 3.5 million Euros. About 2.3 million originates from the Federal Ministry of Education and Research (BMBF), which continues to support the researchers in the second GO-Bio phase.

Connecting excellence and entrepreneural spirit

Since the 1st of July 2017, the team has been working in its own laboratory and office spaces at the Forschungszentrum Jülich campus: No longer as employees, but close to the institute of biotechnology (IBG-1). “The IBG-1 contributed significantly to our success, as an incubator and promoter of our spin-off, and now as a partner”, Schaumann emphasises. “This motivated us to keep our venue at the Forschungszentrum for the upcoming GO-Bio phase.” This is important as it maintains the exchange of knowledge, he says. State Secretary for Research Thomas Rachel, who personally presented the funding notification, is also happy about SenseUp’s location . “This shows that the Jülich site offers major advantages and opportunities for founders through its close connection to the research centre, as well as its proximity to the technology centre”, he says.

Finding luminous highly productive bacteria in piecework

The two founders developed the idea for special sensor technology during their PhD studies and have won the innovation award granted by the state of North Rhine-Westfalia. Usually bacteria strains must be examined over a long period if you want to identify those producing the desired product. To quickly locate the desired bacteria strains, the researchers implanted a circular sensor molecule into the cells. As a result, the microorganisms start to glow as soon as they begin to produce the desired product. With a cell sorting device and a laser beam, the microorganisms can be sorted at a record speed of 50,000 per second. The brightest glowing cells are multiplied and further investigated. In that way, the team could already develop bacteria strains which produce amino acids - important protein building blocks and resources for the food industry. Beyond that they want to find bacteria strains which produce proteins. Amino acids, as well as proteins, are gaining importance for the food industry and medical compounds.

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