KYTOS: Enabling Sustainable Bioprocess Management, One Microbe at a Time
Aquaculture, like many other industries, has an enduring (microbial) disease problem of which the impacts can be felt globally (i.e. estimated yield loss of $ 6 billion per year - source: FAO). It is a global trend among aquaculture companies to adopt a more sustainable path to business and process excellence. Therefore, novel technologies are needed to enable the prevention of microbial disease outbreaks and product contaminations, and to issue control over the (microbial) water and feedstock quality at all times.
At professor Nico Boon’s research group in Ghent University's Center of Microbial Ecology and Technology (CMET), a new computational method has been developed to cost-efficiently detect changes in microbial communities based on the rapid identification of optical features of microbes. Central to their methodology, labeled flow cytometric fingerprinting, is a technology called ‘flow cytometry’. Flow cytometry propels individual microbial cells through a high-powered laser beam at rates of up to 10,000 microbes per second, while simultaneously registering their scattered and emitted light. Previous work has shown that this method can be used to quickly estimate microbial diversity, detect contaminants in drinking water, and even discriminate between closely-related bacterial strains.
With the support of Ghent University’s industrial research fund (IOF), the KYTOS team is further developing the technology. The aim is to valorise it under the spin-off company KYTOS. Currently, they are actively preparing their product and service offering for market-readiness through co-development projects with industrial partners in the aquaculture and fermentation industry (see below). The KYTOS team is composed of two postdoctoral researchers (Ruben Props & Frederiek-Maarten Kerckhof), two business developers (Bart Hommez & Margriet Drouillon) and two academic promoters (Prof. Bart De Gusseme & Prof. Nico Boon). For more information, please contact the team directly at kytos[at]ugent[dot]be.
