Cell-Free Biological Manufacturing

Producing proteins or other biomolecules using the biochemical machinery extracted from cells (ribosomes, enzymes, energy systems) in a reaction vessel, without using or maintaining living cells -- avoiding the need to keep a host organism alive and enabling reactions that would be toxic to a living cell. Anchored at Jewett, Calhoun, Voloshin, Wuu & Swartz, "An integrated cell-free metabolic platform for protein production and synthetic biology" (Molecular Systems Biology 4:220, 2008) -- the first E. coli cell-free system (the "Cytomim" platform) to co-activate central catabolism, oxidative phosphorylation, and protein synthesis together in one integrated reaction, reaching manufacturing-relevant yields (up to 600 mg protein/L/h). Builds on a much older cell-free-translation research tradition (dating to the 1960s) but this is the first integrated platform aimed at manufacturing-scale yields specifically. Real commercial activity exists today (e.g. Sutro Biopharma, Tierra Biosciences).