Cell culture has the potential to solve numerous health and food issues, but the high costs and ethical considerations of the animal-based growth factors commonly used to promote cell development and proliferation can limit the scalability and economic viability of novel processes. Alt Biotech was founded to address this issue, using a novel bioproduction method to produce growth factors, cytokines and hormones necessary for efficient and scalable production. Dr Jade Pellet, CSO and Co-founder of Alt Biotech, explained: “Our aim is to contribute towards innovation in the cell culture space, helping to propel game-changing solutions like cell therapies and cellular agriculture into the mainstream. However, for this to happen, reliance on animal-derived products – such as fetal bovine serum – must come to an end to alleviate ethical concerns, reduce the possibility of contamination and minimize batch-to-batch variability. Most importantly though, animal-free growth factors and small molecules must be made affordable, if anyone other than pharmaceutical companies are to stand a chance of success.”

Alt Biotech’s proprietary process relies on an innovative bioproduction method combined with a genetically engineered microorganism that can yield proteins at a higher rate than the E. coli alternatives employed by its competitors. Jade continued: “Our technology not only produces these growth factors faster than traditional processes, it does so more sustainably and cost effectively, using significantly less water and energy.”

Alt Biotech is based at the Genopole biocluster in the Paris suburb of Évry-Courcouronnes, and benefits from incubator facilities on offer to start-ups. Jade added: “We feel very fortunate to have access to such an abundance of shared office space, lab facilities and equipment, but we were keen to acquire pipettes of our own, in order to set aside dedicated equipment for each of our workflows. We therefore applied to the ‘INTEGRA supports start-ups’ competition, and were lucky enough to receive 12 single and multichannel EVOLVE manual pipettes – as well as $1000 worth of GRIPTIPS® pipette tips – which have transformed the way we work.”

“We have split the pipettes between our microbiology and molecular biology workflows to eliminate any chance of cross contamination between the two,” Jade continued. “The multichannel EVOLVE pipettes have proved to be particularly valuable, minimizing repetitive liquid handling tasks, increasing throughput and reducing well-to-well variation, as well as allowing us to use higher density plates to increase the size of our experimental batches. In addition, the universal tips required for the lab’s shared pipettes frequently proved hard to secure, and we were often left with no choice but to discard them and try alternatives in their place. Thankfully, GRIPTIPS are a much more sustainable solution, simply snapping into place and putting an end to the cycle of wasted tips.”

“Winning these new pipettes from INTEGRA has given our workflows a much needed efficiency boost, allowing us to streamline development processes that will ultimately provide the cell culture industry with affordable, animal-free growth factors and small molecules,” Jade concluded.