Producing Collagen peptides in Trichoderma Reesei using precision fermentation technology

Collagen is a vitally important protein for everyday life, however most of the collagen used by commercial industries (e.g. food, biomedical and pharmaceutical) comes from animal-based sources leading to unreliable, unsustainable and often unaffordable products. BIOCOLL addresses these issues by seeking to produce collagen peptides by using precision fermentation techniques through a filamentous fungi, Trichoderma reesei. T. reesei has been already established in biotechnology as a platform for making sustainable and commercially viable food proteins with GRAS clearance and FDA approval. Using VTT's comprehensive scientific and commercial expertise, BIOCOLL aims to develop a viable proof of concept for the microbial production of collagen peptides which can be demonstrated to industry and potentially developed for technology transfer to enable in the next stage commercial scale-up.