Window to Japan
The Research Institute for Innovative Technologies for the Earth (RITE) in Kansai Science City near Kyoto claims to have achieved a breakthrough in the microbial production of catechol, financially supported by METI’s project house NEDO within the “smart cell” program. In RITE’s and NEDO’s press releases, details to the process are missing except that a […]
Nikon has developed a confocal laser scanning microscope system which allows to analyze the physiological state of cells at high speed in a quantitative manner. The CRIF method (for Confocal Reflection microscopy-assisted single-cell Innate Fluorescence) acquires cell position and morphology by reflection microscopy and autofluorescence signals, which are reconstructed for each cell into a fingerprint. The […]
In collaboration with Kobe University and with support of NEDO, the project house of METI, Shimadzu has developed a “Biotransformer Extraction Total System” that can analyze 186 types of water-soluble cell metabolites at once, and a “Metabolome High-throughput evaluation system” that can find promising smart cell candidate cells in as little as one day. By […]
In this pilot lab, supported by funds from NEDO; smart cells can be developed in less than one-fifth of the conventional time by combining proprietary long-chain DNA synthesis technology, high-throughput recombination technology, and high-speed, high-precision cell metabolite measurement technology. By using these systems to acquire enormous amounts of cell characteristics at high speed with high […]
Using undifferentiated plant cells from the Yew tree (Genera taxus), Hokkaido Mitsui Chemicals has developed an 800 L single-use bag reactor for their cultivation. In order to prevent the slowly propagating cells from settling down, a special tube was installed at the bottom leading to circulated water flow without using an agitator. Cultured yew cells proliferation […]
The enzyme, used for diagnostic assays of cholesterol in blood, is produced by Burkholderia stabilis from which it is secreted. By combining a novel constitutive promoter and functional modification of the host using genomic and expression control information, the company succeeded in constructing a Burkholderia stabilis smart cell with a cholesterol esterase production capacity more […]
