JGC Holdings to establish biomanufacturing R&D Center with a focus on hydrogen bacteria

JGC Holdings (JGC HD), a large oil and gas company, will establish a new “Bioprocess Research Institute (JBX)” on Port Island in Kobe City. The first building (JBX1) is a three-story building with a total floor area of approximately 4,000 square meters, will have multiple culture tanks of several liters to several hundred liters. Completion is scheduled for December 2025.

The institute will be centered on “Development of Technology for Direct Polymer Synthesis from CO2 by Microorganisms” jointly proposed by JGC Holdings, Bacchus Bioinnovation (Kobe City, President and CEO Akihiko Kondo), Kaneka, and Shimadzu Corporation. Since March 2023, the project is supported by NEDO.

According to Takayuki Obuchi, program manager of the Bio-Production Team at JGC Holdings’ Sustainability Collaborative Creation Unit, “the useful substances to be produced are not disclosed at this time, but we are considering various chemical products. At Bacchus Bioinnovation’s research and development center, we will incorporate the pathway to produce the target substance into the hydrogen bacteria, as well as introduce genes to increase its productivity and destroy the production pathway of by-products. After that, we will introduce the improved hydrogen bacteria into JBX1, where we will scale up and develop the process.”

JGC Holdings to establish biomanufacturing R&D Center with a focus on hydrogen bacteria